Sporting KC was ‘embarrassed’ last week. So it flipped the script on Toronto FC

Sporting KC learned all too well in its previous match how one bad spell can erase 50, 60, 70 — or even 89, as manager Peter Vermes put it — minutes of strong play.

This time, though, it was Sporting who flipped the script on its opponent, erasing a frustrating first half with two long-range strikes in a 3-1 win over Toronto FC.

“Easily said, they were a little bit, I guess, embarrassed. We were all embarrassed with the result last week,” Vermes said. “We should have finished that game out 2-nil or even more. We know that we missed some chances, and we also took our foot off the gas pedal.”

On Saturday, Sporting did no such thing.

The match’s first goal came from Rémi Walter, who provided not only the opening score, but perhaps its best highlight in the 57th minute.

Erik Thommy dribbled down the right sideline around a defender and attempted to play a ball into the box, where Willy Agada was waiting in front of goal. Instead, the ball was cleared away as far as Walter, who controlled it and blasted a left-footed strike across the face of goal and into the Toronto FC net.

And then shushed the Toronto crowd for good measure.

“I just want to be aggressive when I play (on the) offensive side,” Walter said. “I know that I score a lot of goals (in) training. And I have to take my chances in the game. … I have to keep going like this.”

All of seven minutes later, Sporting (2-1-3, 9 points) had doubled its lead on another long-range shot, this one from Jake Davis in the 64th minute.

His right-footed shot, from well outside the box, could best be described as a knuckleball that Toronto goalkeeper Luka Gavran never quite read correctly.

Davis took a pass from Agada and drilled a right-footed shot, which could have been saved but swerved past the goalkeeper and into the net.

“I just knew it knuckled and it had a chance,” Davis said. “Then, just heard my teammates cheering for me, and that’s when I knew, I guess. Doesn’t go in often, so I didn’t know what it felt like for it to go in before.”

Davis was mobbed by just about the entire team — reserves included — in celebration after scoring his first goal with Sporting KC.

It was a picture of how quickly the frustration of a match can melt away.

Take, for example, a snapshot from near the end of the first half, one in which Sporting — playing without Alan Pulido — outshot Toronto FC 8-6 with a 6-1 advantage in shots on target.

It was around the 41st minute when a frustrated Agada pulled his jersey over his head, seemingly in disbelief.

Moments prior, he created space just inside the 18-yard box and fired a shot that hit off the crossbar near the upper left corner.

“I mean, he tattooed it,” said Vermes, who noted he’d asked Agada to be more “selfish” taking chances exactly like the one he drilled off the crossbar.

Rewind some 30 minutes, and Agada had another promising chance.

Daniel Salloi attempted to take on Gavran in traffic, but the ball was knocked away ... right to Agada, who fired a shot that was cleared off the line by a defender.

In between those chances, Agada attempted a header that he knocked down and toward the goal, but that too was saved.

“I think Willy was a handful for them,” Vermes said. “I think physically, he was a monster. He’s unlucky to not get a goal. ... His play was a big reason why we won the game. He kept their central guys concerned.”

Indeed, a goal, for a long while, eluded Sporting. Even in the closing moments of the first half, Tim Leibold went one-on-one with Gavran, only to come up empty.

Through 50 minutes, the only time the ball actually hit the back of the net came from the Toronto FC side, albeit on two instances that were wiped away for offside. But Vermes maintained the halftime tweaks were more tactical and defense-focused.

He was pleased with the attack and the chances it was generating.

“Easily should’ve been 2-nil up at halftime,” Vermes said.

Leibold, to his credit, more than made up for his missed chance by closing down a one-on-one opportunity from Toronto forward Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty. And Agada’s assist on the second goal erased what was an otherwise frustrating night.

Alenis Vargas added the exclamation point in the 83rd minute, as the former Sporting KC II standout scored his first goal with the top-level club. He tapped the ball past a Toronto defender, then outran him all the way to the edge of the box, where he calmly slotted the ball past the goalkeeper and into the net.

Vargas scored six goals under coach (and former Sporting great) Benny Feilhaber at the MLS NEXT Pro level last season.

“There’s some real danger in that kid going forward,” Vermes said. “It’s great to have that speed.”

Toronto’s Jonathan Osorio pulled one back in the 97th minute, scoring on an assist from Marshall-Rutty on the final strike of the game.

“I’m a little bit upset with the fact that we didn’t get a shutout,” Vermes said. “We deserved a shutout. But to get three goals on the road to a team that’s been playing as well as they have, they were big points for us.”

Up next: Sporting returns to action on Sunday, April 7, against the Portland Timbers back at Children’s Mercy Park.