Short-handed Battery holds off Fire for draw

There was nothing friendly about this match.

Major League Soccer's Chicago Fire and Charleston Battery treated Saturday night's final game of the Carolina Challenge Cup tournament like a league championship match.

The two teams combined for three red cards, five yellow cards and 24 fouls in their scoreless draw before a crowd of 4,427 at Blackbaud Stadium.

D.C. United won the event for the second straight time with a 2-2 draw against Toronto FC in the first game Saturday.

With the draw, the Battery finished as the tournament's runners-up going 1-1-1 during the weeklong event. It was a solid finish for the Battery, which has been training for less than two weeks.

"Overall I'm pretty happy with the way we played, especially defensively," said Battery coach Mike Anhaeuser. "We haven't been able to work a lot on our defensive shape, but I thought for the most part we did a good job of communicating and keeping our shape in all three games. This is definitely something we can build on."

With less than a half-dozen training sessions, the Battery allowed just three goals to three different MLS teams.

"We've got some veteran guys in the back and that showed throughout the tournament," Anhaeuser said. "To only give up three goals in three games to some quality teams is very good."

The Battery needed to be especially sharp defensively Saturday night as they played most of the match down one or two players.

Veteran midfielder Stephen Armstrong was the first player to be sent off after a high elbow on Chicago forward Gaston Puerari in the 30th minute.

Four minutes later, the Battery found themselves down two men after Mark Wiltse's hard challenge on Chicago's Pari Pantazolopolous.

"We didn't make things easy on ourselves," said veteran defender John Wilson. "The game started out kind of chippy, but we should have done better because we knew they were calling the games a little closer than normal. It was just a couple of unfortunate incidents. Tempers flared and got the best of us.

"There are guys fighting for jobs on their team and guys fighting for jobs on our team. You want to show well and things can get a little heated sometimes."

The two-man advantage lasted all of four minutes after Fire midfielder Mike Videira was issued his second yellow card of the match and left the game in the 38th minute.

"We need to learn from this," Anhaeuser said. "This was a teachable moment."

The Fire had an excellent scoring chance in the 63rd minute when midfielder Gabriel Ferrari blasted a shot on net from about 25 yards out. Keeper Andrew Dykstra had to make a leaping punch to keep the ball out of the net.

The Fire nearly struck again in the 76th minute on Daniel Paladini's free kick from about 35 yards out. Paladini's curving shot hit off the near post.

The Battery had their best chance in the 88th minute when J.C. Mack turned the corner on the Fire defenders and blasted a shot on net from about 20 yards out. But Sean Johnson came up with the save to end the threat.

"For only having nine guys on the field, I thought we did OK on the attack," Anhaeuser said. "We couldn't push forward like we wanted, but we did manage to get some possession."

D.C. United 2, Toronto FC 2

Charlie Davies and Joseph Ngwenya scored for D.C. United as they captured the tournament title for the second straight year.

Davies scored in the 12th minute to give D.C. United an early 1-0 lead off a pass from Chris Pontius.

Toronto responded when forward Gianluca Zavarise won a penalty kick and captain Dwayne De Rosario converted in the 19th minute.

Toronto took the lead, 2-1, in the 28th minute when striker Maicon Santos scored.

Ngwenya got the equalizer in the 62nd minute off a pass from veteran midfielder Santino Quaranta.