{"id":10154,"date":"2017-09-30T21:30:35","date_gmt":"2017-10-01T01:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonsoccer.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=10154"},"modified":"2017-09-30T22:17:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-01T02:17:10","slug":"columbus-crew-sc-clinch-playoff-berth-berhalter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2017\/09\/30\/columbus-crew-sc-clinch-playoff-berth-berhalter\/","title":{"rendered":"Columbus Crew SC Clinches Third Playoff Berth of Gregg Berhalter Era With Win Over D.C. United"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A year removed from having a variety of factors contribute to missing the playoffs, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/category\/crew\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Columbus Crew SC<\/a> are on their way back to the postseason.<\/p>\n<p>In front of 17,350, the Black and Gold upended D.C. United 2-0 on Saturday to clinch a spot in the MLS Cup Playoffs for the third time in Gregg Berhalter&#8217;s now four-year tenure. It extends the club&#8217;s unbeaten run to eight games, the longest such stretch since 2010.<\/p>\n<h1><strong>Columbus Crew SC Clinches Third Playoff Berth of Gregg Berhalter Era With Win Over D.C. United<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Berhalter made a single change to the starting XI from <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonsoccer.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2017\/09\/23\/federico-higuain-assist-hat-trick-crew-sc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">last week&#8217;s 3-2 win over the New York Red Bulls<\/a>. Artur made his first start since August 12th, replacing Mohammed Abu in the box-to-box midfielder role. When healthy, the Brazilian&#8217;s quality at winning second balls has been on full display as he&#8217;s one of 21 MLS players averaging over 7.5 recoveries per 90 (minimum 1,000 minutes played).<\/p>\n<p>Against the Red Bulls, the Crew SC centerbacks made their presence felt in emphatic fashion. Both Jonathan Mensah and Josh Williams contributed goals in the win. For the season as a whole, five goals have come from defenders, the highest total since Berhalter took over. That trend continued on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>14 minutes in, Williams once again figured prominently on the score sheet. And it came in scarily similar fashion to last week&#8217;s tally. The 29-year-old Northeast Ohio native came onto a Federico Higuain corner with his head, slotting it past former Crew SC goalkeeper Steve Clark to put Columbus up 1-0.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">2\ufe0f\u20e3 GOALS IN 2\ufe0f\u20e3 GAMES!! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/josh3williams?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@josh3williams<\/a> getting it done. \ud83d\udc4f <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CLBvDC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#CLBvDC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CrewSC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#CrewSC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/G9xLFXFgIZ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/G9xLFXFgIZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; The Crew (@ColumbusCrew) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ColumbusCrew\/status\/914281218098761728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 1, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The only difference between the two goals was the fact tonight&#8217;s Higuain assist came from the right corner flag instead of the left. But the tandem of scores in as many weeks represent a sudden spike in goal-scoring form from the Crew SC defender. In his previous eight seasons in MLS, Williams managed just four goals with his last coming on April 27, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Crew SC&#8217;s 1-0 advantage would remain as the two clubs headed into the locker room for halftime. The home side knew full well that an insurance goal could play a huge part in cementing the full three points and, by extension, a spot in the playoffs. And they showed plenty of purpose at the onset of the second stanza, putting two shots at Clark in the first ten minutes.<\/p>\n<p>That onslaught at the D.C. net reaped dividends not long thereafter. And this time, it came from a familiar face with respect to the Crew SC goal-scorers in Justin Meram. The dynamic wide player continued to showcase his sparkling form in 2017 with a 57th minute golazo. His curling shot from the upper left corner of the box beat Clark far post to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">An inch-perfect beauty from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JustinMeram?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@JustinMeram<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/columbuscrewsc?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@ColumbusCrewSC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CLBvDC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#CLBvDC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XaP8WdVzmJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/XaP8WdVzmJ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Major League Soccer (@MLS) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLS\/status\/914292035850428417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 1, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Black and Gold continue to make waves under Berhalter. Saturday&#8217;s result gives Columbus its 12th win at MAPFRE Stadium in 2017, setting a new single-season franchise record. The now fourth-year Crew SC manager has also exhibited a fair bit of success against Ben Olsen, now moving to 5-2-3 all-time against D.C.<\/p>\n<p>The result also further reinforces Crew SC&#8217;s dominance in Columbus over D.C. United. The Black and Red&#8217;s last victory in Columbus came over a decade ago, a 2-0 win on August 18, 2007.<\/p>\n<p>With the 2017 Crew SC home schedule now complete, the club now hits the road for their final two games of the season. First up is a tussle with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/category\/ocsc\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Orlando City SC<\/a> for the third and final time of the year. That&#8217;s followed up with the season finale at Yankee Stadium for their second meeting with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/category\/nycfc\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York City FC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo credit: Columbus Crew SC Communications<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A year removed from having a variety of factors contribute to missing the playoffs, Columbus Crew SC are on their way back to the postseason. In front of 17,350, the Black and Gold upended D.C. United 2-0 on Saturday to clinch a spot in the MLS Cup Playoffs for the third time in Gregg Berhalter&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":742,"featured_media":10167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,119,3],"tags":[245,136,129,246,1181,397,57],"class_list":["post-10154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crew","category-mls","category-news","tag-columbus-crew-sc","tag-dc-united","tag-fifa","tag-gregg-berhalter","tag-josh-williams","tag-justin-meram","tag-mls"],"modified_by":"John Bava","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/742"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}