By Ridge Mahoney, Senior Editor
The torrid play of DaMarcus Beasley leads the Fire's scorching win in San Jose; the Burn and Rapids end their winless skids but there's no relief for D.C. or L.A.; Preki defies time to bring the Wizards a tie; and the Crew is again unable to win at home.
BEST GOALS: A good weekend of scoring with 17 goals in five games (3.4 average) yielded several memorable shots.
* Jeff Cunningham snaked through the penalty arc to freeze several defenders and smack a low shot past Tim Howard for the Crew's goal in its 1-1 with the Metros.
* DaMarcus Beasley took a feed from Carlos Bocanegra on the left side of the penalty area and belted a low bullet that nestled just inside the far post for the Fire's first goal in its 4-1 pounding of the Quakes.
* Preki trapped a low ball from Chris Klein in traffic with his left foot and shot quickly to start Kansas City's comeback from a 2-0 deficit to tie the Revs, 2-2.
STATS:
* The Crew and Metros have already played three times; each team has won on the other team's field with the third game, at Crew Stadium, being the 1-1 tie that makes the Crew's home record 1-2-2.
* After being shut out in three of its first five games the Fire has scored four goals in each of its last two games.
* Preki, who turns 40 later this month, has scored six goals in nine games. He scored seven goals last year and eight in 2001.
BEST ASSISTS:
* Brad Davis launched a diagonal ball from midfield that Jason Kreis ran onto to head the first goal in the Burn's 3-2 defeat of D.C.
* Revs midfielder Steve Ralston evaded Eric Quill on the flank and then clipped a cross for Brian Kamler to head in at the near post.
* Alecko Eskandarian slipped past a defender and took a kick in the groin from Chad Deering while setting up Convey for his goal.
STAT: Kreis' goal is the 83rd of his career, which moves him into second place on the all-time list behind Roy Lassiter (88).
BEST SAVES: Tim Howard stopped Jeff Cunningham with a kick save on a breakaway a few minutes after he'd given the Crew a 1-0 lead. Revs' keeper Adin Brown had several superb stops, most notably a pair on Chris Brown for which he lunged low to his left and flew high to his right.
STREAKS: The Rapids scoreless streak ended at 395 minutes when Chris Carrieri scored in the 77th minute to down the Galaxy, 1-0 …. Clint Mathis scored in his fifth straight game and the Metros' 1-1 tie with the Crew extended their unbeaten run to six matches.
MLS GAME SUMMARIES (May 31)
May 31 in San Jose
SAN JOSE (4-1-2, 14 pts) 1 CHICAGO (3-1-3, 12 pts) 4.
Goals: Roner (Dunivant) 59; Beasley (Bocanegra) 28, Ralph 47, Razov (Whitfield) 81, Beasley (Jaqua) 90.
Att.: 7,410.
May 31 in Foxboro, Mass.
NEW ENGLAND (4-2-3, 15 pts) 2 KANSAS CITY (3-1-5, 14 pts) 2.
Goals: Own goal 44, Kamler (Ralston) 63; Preki (Klein, Quill) 72, Preki 83.
Att.: 10,312.
May 31 in Columbus
COLUMBUS (3-3-3, 12 pts) 1 METROSTARS (5-1-2, 17 pts) 1.
Goals: Cunningham (Paule, Garcia) 34; Mathis pen. 64.
Att.: 12,518.
May 31 in Southlake, Texas
DALLAS (1-3-3, 6 pts) 3 DC UNITED (0-3-4, 4 pts) 2.
Goals: Kreis (Davis) 16, Gbandi (Davis) 41, Cerritos pen. 75; Convey (Eskandarian) 51, Convey (Stoitchkov, Quintanilla) 89.
Att.: 7,617.
May 31 in Denver
COLORADO (1-5-1, 4 pts) 1 LOS ANGELES (0-4-4, 4 pts) 0.
Goal: Carrieri (Chung) 77.
Att.: 13,368.