Julian Carranza scores twice, Philadelphia Union cruise past CF Montreal

Kyle Ross-USA TODAY Sports

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Julian Carranza scored his team-leading eighth and ninth goals of the season and the Philadelphia Union kept rolling in a 3-0 victory over visiting CF Montreal on Saturday night.

Mikael Uhre added his sixth goal of the season for Philadelphia (9-4-3, 30 points), which won a fourth straight and extended its league unbeaten run to nine matches.

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With Daniel Gazdag also with seven goals, the Union are the only MLS team to have three players who have scored six or more times in the league this season.

Andre Blake made two saves to keep his second consecutive clean sheet and sixth overall this season.

Montreal (6-9-1, 19 points) was outshot 23-9 overall and 8-2 in efforts on target, on a day head coach Hernan Losada made eight lineup changes from the squad that started in Wednesday's 2-2 draw at D.C. United.

Those decisions were made with one eye toward Wednesday when Montreal will travel across the continent to visit Vancouver in the Canadian Championship final.

That doesn't mean the visitors came to Philadelphia without any attacking ambition. If anything, it was the opposite -- too much endeavor that allowed the Union to do what they do best: find spots to attack in transition.

But Carranza's opener was a moment of individual excellence in the 12th minute.

With the ball on the left near the edge of the penalty area and Bryce Duke defending, the Argentine feigned like he was going to try to make a pass into the box.

Instead, he cut to the right, then unleashed a bending right-footed effort that curled beyond the dive of James Pantemis and just inside the far-right post.

Uhre scored an opportunistic second goal on an opportunity Carranza helped create when he received a pass on the right side of the area and drove a low shot toward Pantemis' goal from a tight angle.

Pantemis saved but couldn't hold it, and Uhre popped up to flick the rebound home from close range in the 36th minute.

It was 3-0 about 16 minutes after halftime on Carranza's second, which benefitted from a pair of deflections on its way over Pantemis.