Real Salt Lake extends regular-season home unbeaten run to 24

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SANDY – Fatigue threatened to finally take down Real Salt Lake and end its brilliant run at home until help arrived from an unexpected source.

On the strength of a stoppage time goal from Nat Borchers, RSL rallied to salvage a 1-1 draw with the Colorado Rapids on Saturday night at Rio Tinto Stadium. It extended the club's MLS-record setting home unbeaten streak to 24 games and helped Salt Lake pull to within two points of the Los Angeles Galaxy in the chase for the Supporters' Shield.

A game-changing goal coming from Borchers seemed like an unlikely confluence of events. He had not scored a goal during the 2010 season in MLS action and the 93rd minute seemed like an unlikely time to find the net.

Still, Borchers became the man of the hour when he got his head under a long ball served into the penalty area by Andy Williams and flicked it backward into the net.

"He puts those things in there on a dime," Borchers said. "I probably couldn't have missed it, even though I've missed some pretty clear chances this year already."

Borchers joked that the Vegas odds on him making that goal would be "1,000 to 1." Initially, he had to outjump a Rapids defender just to even get a piece of the ball.

"I just thought that ball was going to be a little bit out of my reach," Borchers said. "I just put a little extra effort and stretched my neck out and got the end of it."

In the end, it helped Salt Lake get a favorable result on a night where fatigue threatened to finally exact a toll.

RSL did a good job of controlling possession in the first half even while sitting several regular starters – including Kyle Beckerman, Will Johnson, Alvaro Saborio and Nick Rimando. Real generated seven corner kicks compared to for Colorado and they doubled up the Rapids 8-4 in shots on goal.

Those nice stats didn't matter though when Colorado seized a 1-0 lead in the 36th minute. The Rapids went ahead when Connor Casey latched onto a cross from Kosuke Kimura and popped a header past backup RSL keeper Kyle Reynish.

The goal ended Salt Lake's shutout streak at a season best 568 minutes and was the first goal the team had allowed in MLS play since a 1-1 draw at Philadelphia on August 11th.