VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Brian White scored two goals, Ryan Gauld finished with a goal and two assists and the Vancouver Whitecaps cruised to a 5-1 victory over the Seattle Sounders on Sunday.
Vancouver (18-8-7) entered having already clinched first place in the Western Conference after Saturday's results before completing a season sweep of Seattle (11-12-10) with its largest margin of victory in the series.
White set the tone early when he scored
on a header in the 1st minute. Rookie Bruno Caicedo collected his fourth assist and Gauld notched his third.
Gauld scored his fifth goal of the campaign to make it 2-0 in the 9th minute with an assist from defender Édier Ocampo.
The Whitecaps took a three-goal lead in the 43rd minute and carried it into halftime when defender Mathias Laborda used his head to score his fifth goal, matching his career high set last season. Gauld snagged another assist and Ocampo upped his total to a career-best 12 in his second full season.
White scored in the 53rd minute for a 4-0 advantage. Caicedo added another assist and second-year defender Tate Johnson earned his career-high fifth on the 30-year-old forward’s career-best 19th goal of the season and his 102nd in 214 career matches.
Jordan Morris got Seattle on the scoreboard in the 62nd minute when he used assists from Albert Rusnák and Hassani Dotson to net his second goal.
Aleksa Cvetković answered seven minutes later with his second goal in his first eight MLS appearances to make it 5-1. Cheikh Sabaly and Ranko Veselinović had assists.
Yohei Takaoka finished with four saves for Vancouver.
Andrew Thomas saved five shots for Seattle, which began the day holding on to the ninth and final playoff spot in the West.
The Whitecaps beat the Sounders 2-0 in Seattle on Aug. 16.
Seattle and Vancouver both went 2-2-2 in October.
Seattle: Hosts Los Angeles FC to close out the regular season on Saturday.
San Jose: At Minnesota United on Saturday to finish the regular season.
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