St. Louis City halt road struggles, blank CF Montreal

Conrad Wallem scored his first career MLS goal and Roman Burki made two saves as St. Louis City snapped a nine-game road losing streak with a 2-0 victory at CF Montreal on Saturday night.

Marcel Hartel also scored for St. Louis (6-17-7, 25 points). The victory was the first away from home for St. Louis since a 3-0 win over the L.A. Galaxy on March 9.

It was the fourth clean sheet of the season for Burki as St. Louis snapped a four-match winless streak (0-3-1) while improving to 2-11-2 in road matches.

Jonathan Sirois finished with two saves for Montreal (5-16-9, 24 points), which had a four-match unbeaten streak (1-0-3) snapped.

St. Louis took a 1-0 lead in the 11th minute when Joao Klauss' shot attempt deflected to Wallem alone in front of the six-yard box. Wallem then slid a left-footed shot inside the far left post.

Montreal nearly tied it later in the half when Matty Longstaff chipped a shot from the left side of the box over the head of Burki, but defender Fallou Fall headed the ball away at the goal line to prevent a score.

The home team had another good scoring chance just before halftime when Prince Owusu took a through pass from Victor Loturi and broke in free, but Burki made a leg save on his shot from the left edge of the six-yard box.

St. Louis extended its lead to 2-0 in the 55th minute on Hartel's sixth goal, a right-footed shot inside the far right post off a nifty short cross at the top of the box by Klauss.

Montreal, which finished with a 17-13 edge in shot attempts, turned up the pressure after that and nearly scored five minutes later. Ivan Jaime's right-footed shot caromed off the crossbar and Hennadii Synchuk put in a left-footed shot from the edge of the six-yard box that was quickly ruled offside.

--Field Level Media