Vela, Biuk spark late surge as LAFC blanks St Louis City 3-0 #Vela #Biuk #spark #late #surge #LAFC #blanks #Louis #City

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Carlos Vela and Stipe Biuk scored goals 10 minutes apart late in the second half to lead Los Angeles FC to a 3-0 victory over St. Louis City on Wednesday night.

LAFC (10-6-6) has never lost to an expansion team, winning all seven contests by a combined 16-1 score. Defending champions are now 10-4-5 against expansion teams since 2010. Two of the four wins by an expansion team over the reigning champs came last season when Charlotte FC swept New York City FC.

Neither team scored until Vela took a pass from José Cifuentes in the 72nd minute and scored his seventh goal of the season. Biuk added his second goal of the campaign, using an assist from Dénis Bouanga to push the lead to 2-0. Cifuentes netted his first goal this season, scoring with an assist from 19-year-old Nathan Ordaz in the second minute of stoppage time to complete the scoring. It was the second assist for Ordaz, who also has a goal in his rookie season.

A worker helps clear the wreckage of a Greyhound bus that collided with tractor-trailers on the exit ramp to a rest area on westbound Interstate 70 in Highland, Ill., on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. (Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)

Illinois State Police say a Greyhound passenger bus crashed into three tractor-trailers parked along a highway rest area exit in southern Illinois, killing three people and injuring 14 others, some seriously.

A no trespassing sign hangs on a fence around the West Lake Landfill Superfund site on Friday, April 21, 2023, in Bridgeton, Mo. Federal officials plan to remove some of the hazardous leached barium sulfate that is at the landfill and cap the rest. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

The St. Louis region has been struggling with nuclear waste since uranium was first processed at a plant near downtown starting in the early 1940s.

Susie Gaffney poses for a photo along Coldwater Creek near where she used to live Friday, April 7, 2023, in Florissant, Mo. The creek was contaminated when nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project flowed into the waterway past homes, schools and businesses. St. Louis played an important role in the country’s effort to build the first nuclear weapon. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Newly public documents are showing how America’s push for the atomic bomb helped saddle St. Louis with an enduring radioactive waste problem. St.

This photo provided by the National Archives and Records Administration shows the damaged sixth floor and roof of the Military Personnel Records Center in Overland, Mo., near St. Louis, after a massive fire that started on July 12, 1973. (National Archives via AP)

Fifty years ago, millions of files were destroyed in a huge fire at the Military Personnel Records Center in suburban St. Louis.

John McCarthy stopped two shots to earn the clean sheet for LAFC. Roman Bürki did not have a save for St. Louis City.

LAFC picked up just its second win in its last eight home matches in all competitions (2-4-2). The club went 18-2-2 in its previous 22 home contests.

St. Louis City (12-8-2), the leaders in the Western Conference, saw its three-match win streak end. It is the first expansion club with three winning streaks of three or more in the post-shootout era (2000).

St. Louis City returns home to host Inter Miami on Saturday. LAFC travels to play Minnesota United on Saturday.