Carlos Ruiz saves the night for the home team 4-10-04
Saturday, April 10, 2004 
In front of a sold out crowd Carlos Ruiz saves the night for the home team with a spectacular strike at the
D.C. United showed controlled possession in the first half, forcing the Galaxy’s goalkeeper Kevin Hartman to come up with a few saves. To close out the half the Galaxy did manage a good look at a header from a corner kick that went to the right of the goal.
The sellout crowd of 27,000 was anticipating an appearance by 14-year-old Freddy Adu, who got into the game in at the half replacing Alecko Eskandarian. For United it took veteran forward Ronald Cerritos to break the deadlock less than a minute after entering the match, in the 68th minute.
The Galaxy’s night was saved by Carlos Ruiz who showed a great bit of skill to out muscle his defender in the 85th minute and put a strong shot past DC United goalkeeper Nick Rimando. The Galaxy almost took the win with two close chances in the last few minutes but it was not to be. The popular Cobi Jones made his season debut in the second half coming off a quad/tendon strain injury.
Freddy Adu got his first shot on goal in the 89th minute, forcing goalkeeper Hartman to make a save. In his LA debut, the 5 foot 7, 140 pound Adu showed that, even though he might be young and a bit easy to throw off the ball, he can play hard and send a hard tackle right back. Just ask Andreas Herzog who took an Adu knock after he stole the ball from Adu. Freddy Adu is the youngest athlete to play in American professional sports since 1887. He was the star player in the Under-17 World Championships in 2003 scoring 23 goals and was called up last November to the US Under-20 team.
Scoring Summary:
DC – Ronald Cerritos (Joshua Gros, Earnie Stewart) 68
LA – Carlos Ruiz (Joseph Ngwenya, Sasha Victorine) 85
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