Chris Pontius opened his goalscoring account for the 2011 MLS season with a brace, while Charlie Davies scored his MLS-leading fifth goal in his first D.C. United start as the Black-and-Red achieved their first road win of the season with a 3-0 win over Toronto FC Saturday night.
Pontius opened the scoring for the visitors less than five minutes into the game as he picked up a loose ball in the opposing half and ran to the edge of the area, where he slotted the ball into the lower right corner of the net past Toronto goalkeeper Stefan Frei.
United doubled their advantage just five minutes later thanks to some nifty combination work from the striking duo of Davies and Josh Wolff. It was Davies who started the move, intercepting an errant pass in midfield and chipping a lovely ball for Wolff behind the Toronto defense. Wolff's shot was parried by Frei, but not held, and Davies was on the spot to roll the ball into the open net.
Things went from bad to worse for Toronto as Ty Harden was sent off in the 49th minute for bringing down Pontius on the edge of the penalty area as the D.C. United man was bearing down on the Toronto net. It was ruled that Harden had denied Pontius a clear goal-scoring opportunity and the Toronto man was shown a straight red card.
Toronto were able to pick themselves up somewhat after being reduced to 10 men and had a couple of chances to reduce their deficit, but Maicon Santos' shot from the edge of the area in the 64th minute went harmlessly wide of Bill Hamid's goal.
Pontius supplied the coup de grace, finishing off a counterattack by taking a pass from Brazilian midfielder Fred, striding into the area, beating substitute defender Dan Gargan, and firing into the corner in the 73rd minute.
Toronto FC had one more chance at a consolation goal, but a header from close range by Jacob Peterson was cleared off the line by defenseman Ethan White in the 77th minute.
Davies would up playing the full 90 minutes, but there was one brief moment of concern when he stayed down in the Toronto FC area after attempting a contest shot on net. Though Davies did stay down for quite some time after the initial shot, he was found to be suffering nothing more than a left calf cramp.