Estrada leads Seattle past Houston

SEATTLE – David Estrada walked into the locker room at halftime to find out his fourth goal in just two games was taken away. By the time he came back in after Seattle’s victory on Friday night, Estrada had regained ownership of goal No. 4 and claim to being the top scorer in MLS early in the season.

“Everything I hit is going in,” Estrada said with a chuckle.

Estrada scored his fourth goal on a deflected shot in the 23rd minute, Brad Evans converted a penalty kick 4 minutes later and the Sounders rolled to a 2-0 victory over the Houston Dynamo.

Seattle (2-0-0) took down its second straight Eastern Conference foe after opening the MLS season with a 3-1 win over Toronto last Saturday. The Sounders are hoping to make the most of a favorable early schedule that puts six of their first eight league matches at home before spending the majority of May, June and July on the road.

Estrada, who had a hat trick last weekend, kept his goal-scoring streak going when his blast from outside the penalty box deflected into the net. But while the goal was initially given to Estrada, ultimately getting credit for giving Seattle a 1-0 lead wasn’t so easy.

Estrada was at the top of the penalty area when a corner kick was headed out of the box. He got off a right-footed shot before the ball touched the ground.

His shot appeared to be on goal even before it deflected off Houston defender Geoff Cameron and past Dynamo keeper Tally Hall, who was diving in the opposite direction of the deflection.

Before halftime even arrived, the official scoring was changed to an own-goal since replay made it difficult to see if Estrada’s initial shot would be on net. Then in the waning moments of the game, the goal was changed back, crediting it to Estrada.

Before Houston (2-1-0) had a chance to respond to Estrada’s strike, the Sounders were threatening again. Seattle earned another corner and defender Patrick Ianni was fouled by Cameron when he undercut Ianni coming up from the back line for the corner kick.

Referee Baldomero Toledo didn’t hesitate pointing to the penalty spot and Evans converted the penalty kick even with Hall guessing correctly.

Seattle controlled possession for most of the night and made life easy for goalkeeper Michael Gspurning, whose only real threat came early in the match.

Will Bruin was set up perfectly by Brian Ching (Gonzaga University), but the left-footed shot was tipped over the crossbar.