One of the few things missing from Fredy Montero’s MLS resume was a hat trick.
Go ahead and check that one off.
The Colombian scored his first career MLS hat trick and added an assist to lead the Seattle Sounders to a wild 6-2 victory over Chivas USA on Saturday.
The six goals tied a franchise record for most goals scored in a game, with Brad Evans and Sammy Ochoa adding tallies to go along with an own goal from Chivas USA’s Ante Jazic.
HIGHLIGHTS: Chivas USA 2, Seattle 6
“I think we did great offensively, and making many situations for goals,” said Sounders midfielder Mauro Rosales, who assisted on all three of Montero’s goals and now leads MLS with 13 assists. “For the strikers, they were very effective and very calm with the ball. Almost every time that we could make a good pass or a good pass through to them, they did very well.”
No one was better than Montero, who has now scored in four straight games and has seven goals in his past six.
He got started early by assisting on Evans’ 10th minute goal. Montero they got one for himself in the 27th minute. And about seven minutes later, Montero added a second after running onto a Rosales through ball and chipping over goalkeeper Dan Kennedy.
Montero finished off the hat trick with one of his best goals of the season, and one the Sounders actually needed. Just three minutes after Chivas USA had cut the Sounders three-goal lead down to 3-2, Montero again took a pass from Rosales inside the penalty area. Montero cut it back with his first touch to allow the defender to slide past and then blasted across his body to beat Kennedy inside the far post.
“He’s playing well,” Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid said. “I think the one goal that he made where he played the ball to Mauro, he got the ball back and just chipped it over Kennedy as he was coming out, I thought that was a quality goal, a quality finish. He’s very sharp right now and very confident and obviously that’s a good thing for our team.”
The improved play of Montero is no small part of why the Sounders now find themselves in second place in the West. The Sounders are now 5-1-1 in their past seven, giving them 43 points. Although that’s the same number of points as Real Salt Lake, the Sounders have the advantage in the first tiebreaker with three more goals scored and two games still in hand.
“I’m just happy to keep it up,” Montero said. “We know that it is not the end; we have nine more games where we have to make as many plays as we can. We have a really good team, we have players who are ready for the opportunity to come in and perform well.”
Jeremiah Oshan covers the Seattle Sounders for MLSsoccer.com and SB Nation.
