Jonathan Lewis, Nico Mezquida and Auston Trusty scored to lead the Colorado Rapids (13-4-9, 48 points) to a 3-0 win over 2021 expansion side Austin FC (6-17-4, 22 points) on Wednesday at DICK’S Sporting Goods Park. Club captain Jack Price reached a team-leading 11 assists on the season, tied for second in MLS, on Lewis’ and Trusty’s goals, while goalkeeper William Yarbrough made four saves to earn his 11th clean sheet of the season, tying the league lead and setting a single-season individual club record. The win extends Colorado’s unbeaten streaks to 12 games overall and 13 straight at home.
Notable Numbers:
- William Yarbrough made four saves to earn his 11th clean sheet of the season, which is tied for the league lead and sets a new individual single-season club record. Yarbrough now has the highest save percentage in MLS (77.14 percent) among goalkeepers with at least 10 games played.
- Auston Trusty scored his first goal as a Rapids player and his first since June 2019 while with Philadelphia. Trusty’s goal was Colorado’s ninth corner kick goal of the season and its 11th off a set piece this season.
- Jack Price picked up his 10th and 11th assists of the season, moving into a tie for second-most in MLS. They were the 30th and 31st assists of Price’s Rapids career, moving into sole possession of third on the club’s all-time list. It was the second multi-assist game by a Rapids player this season, after Michael Barrios’ two-assist performance against Houston on May 15.
- Cole Bassett picked up his third assist of the season on Nico Mezquida’s goal.
- Steven Beitashour earned his first assist of the season on Jonathan Lewis’ goal.
- Colorado extends its league-best unbeaten streak to 12 games, with five clean sheets in that span. The Rapids also extend their home unbeaten streak to 13 games.
COLORADO RAPIDS HEAD COACH ROBIN FRASER
On rotating players:
“At the end of the day, this is going to be a rough next four weeks of games for us. We have a lot of games coming up and as we have subbed a good deal in the last, I don’t know, five or six games, we have a lot of confidence in the whole group. And though we make changes, it’s not like we’re resting the better guys and playing the lesser guys. We have a lot of really good players, and when we make changes, it’s really ultimately to have everyone be healthy at the end and give us the best possible opportunity to have selections at the end of the year while still gaining points. We have so much confidence in our roster top to bottom that when we do rotate the way we do, today it looked a little bit different from the beginning. But if you look at how much we’ve substituted over the last five or six, six or seven games, we just have a lot of belief in the whole group and it’s exciting to know that we can make changes and our game still looks the same. At times we make changes and we increase our tempo. So that sort of competition within training is only making us better and what we’re seeing on the weekend is a result of that—the fact that we can make changes and either keep the tempo going or pick the tempo up.”
On whether William Yarbrough should be considered one of the top goalkeepers in the league:
“In my opinion, undoubtedly. It’s a similar—my response would be similar to my response about Jack [Price], meaning, everyone is now talking about Will because of the number of shutouts, and you’re right, it’s very much about a team mentality and a team mindset and the team working really hard and certainly Will has. When he’s been called upon has made saves that he needs to make and tonight came off the line and dealt with a lot of things. But what you guys don’t know is the person. The person that he is and the leader that he is and the character that he is in the locker room and how important he is to this team, aside from the zeros that we see on the scoreboard. There’s so much more to him than what he gives this team than just what you see in terms of making saves, getting shutouts, that sort of thing. He’s a top class person and a top class goalkeeper.”
COLORADO RAPIDS GOALKEEPER WILLIAM YARBROUGH
On tonight's match:
“It was a big game for us. We’ve come off of two home draws and we knew that we needed to do something different. We needed to change the gear and try to get a good result at home with our fans and keep putting ourselves in a good spot in the league and I think today we saw that. Everyone was mentally locked in. We went after the game from minute one to minute 90 and I think we just switched our mentality going into this game and I think that’s why we had a solid performance today.”
On the club’s 11th clean sheet of the season, tied for league lead:
“Yeah, that is not only the defense getting the clean sheet, it’s the work of the entire team. The attention to detail in training sessions and the work everyone puts in during the 90 minutes of games. It starts with the forwards all the way to the ‘keeper and I think it just shows the chemistry this team has, the understanding we have of what Robin [Fraser] asks of us. We understand that if we’re solid defensively, it puts us in spots to win games. Like I say, these 11 clean sheets is 100 percent a team effort. Not only the 11 players, but the subs coming on. You’ve seen it in every game. They come on locked in knowing what they need to do defensively, set pieces, it’s just a product of the work we put in day in and day out and the concentration and the attention to detail of what Robin asks of us.”
