Darren Yapi scores first career brace, lifts Rapids past Minnesota

Yapi hour came right on time.

Facing an uphill battle for a playoff berth with nine games to go, Colorado Rapids forward Darren Yapi put his team on his back. With his first-ever brace in a 2-1 win over Minnesota United at Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minn., the 20-year-old gave the Rapids new life days after losing their best player to a transfer.

Starting the day in 10th place in the Western Conference — out of the playoff picture — the win put Colorado in eighth and sets it up strongly for a relatively easy schedule to round the regular season out. Minnesota could have jumped Vancouver for second in the West with a win.

Yapi broke the deadlock in the 60th minute with a run down the left flank, then a move toward the middle and a calm, powerful finish toward the right side netting. Sam Vines provided the impressive ball into space in transition for his second assist of the season.

The youngster struck again in the 70th, again in transition. After a string of quick passes on a counterattack, Rafael Navarro played Yapi in on the right side of the box, and Yapi sniped the bottom left corner past Minnesota keeper Dayne St. Clair. The tallies were Yapi’s fifth and sixth of the season — a career single-season high that keeps rising.

“This can give us momentum going into this last (part of the season). I’m happy to have scored my first brace and honestly just want to keep going,” Yapi said. “Every time I start, or even off the bench, I ask myself the same question, which is, ‘How can I help the team win?’ In any way, whether it’s offensively or defensively, just finding ways I can help the team is huge for me.”

Those two plays alone, in succession, were as good as the Rapids have looked in transition all year. Impressive for a team that just transferred Djordje Mihailovic, one of the MLS’s most creative attacking players, to Toronto.

“(The transition game) was part of the reason we started the front three that we did with Calvin (Harris), Yapi and (Navarro). We knew three of the most powerful, fastest guys could keep close together and create scenarios of our front three against their back three,” Rapids coach Chris Armas said. “It’s going to be interesting moving forward. … In the run of play, we were pretty stingy against a really good team.”

Minnesota responded quickly to the Rapids’ second goal with a wide-open finish from about eight yards out by Tani Oluwaseyi in the 73rd minute.