Cucho Hernandez and Yaw Yeboah scored in the first half and the Columbus Crew held on to beat defending champion LAFC 2-1 on Saturday to win their third MLS Cup in Columbus, Ohio.

The Crew added the title to their championships in 2008, when they beat the New York Red Bulls, and 2020, when they defeated the Seattle Sounders. Columbus lost to the Portland Timbers in the 2015 title game.

Only the LA Galaxy (five) and D.C. United (four) have won more titles.

Los Angeles was looking to become the fourth MLS team to win consecutive titles.

Hernandez scored in the 33rd minute and Yeboah added a goal in the 37th. Denis Bouanga scored for LAFC in the 74th.

First-year coach Wilfried Nancy was pleased how the Crew finished the match.

“Obviously, really happy because of the second half we knew there would be a difficult moment and the way we were able to enter this difficult moment, that’s why we won,” Nancy said. “Yes, we play a good first half and I am so happy because the most important thing for me was not to win, was to be ourselves and my players did it.”

Hernandez, voted the MVP of the match, put Columbus up 1-0 on a penalty kick. He deposited the ball in the lower left corner for his fifth goal in six playoff matches this season. He is 9 for 9 from the spot in all competitions in his Crew career.

“I’ve taken seven or eight penalties this year, but this was the one I was nervous,” Hernandez said. “I knew I couldn’t miss it.”

The goal was the first allowed by LAFC in four matches.

Yeboah doubled the lead for the Crew, the highest-scoring team in MLS in the regular season, when Malte Amundsen threaded a pass through to Yeboah on the left flank on the last of 11 passes in the build-up.

From there, Yeboah dribbled to the goal box and slipped a shot past goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau.

Day, Ko build 2-shot lead in mixed team tourney

Jason Day and Lydia Ko shot 31 on the back nine in the tougher foursomes format Saturday, giving them a 6-under 66 for a two-shot lead in the Grant Thornton Invitational in Naples, Fla., the first mixed-team event since 1999.

They were at 20-under 144, two clear of Lucas Glover and Leona Maguire (69) and Tony Finau and Nelly Korda (70).

“I think the biggest thing in foursomes is to keep the ball in play,” Day said. “My personal goal was to just get it down the fairway, keep it in play. ... Lydia, she’s been a solid rock for the team.”

Rickie Fowler and Lexi Thompson put together a dynamic back nine of their own, highlighted by Thompson making a hole-in-one on the par-3 16th hole, the ball taking one hop and disappearing into the hole.

But they also had bogeys on two of the par 5s. Four birdies and Thompson’s ace gave them a 31 on the back for a 68, leaving them four shots behind.

Briefly

Alpine skiing >> Mikaela Shiffrin mastered the sharper turns on a sun-bathed course at St. Moritz, Switzerland, to be 0.15 seconds faster than standout downhill racer Sofia Goggia, who won the super-G on Friday. Shiffrin earned 100 World Cup points for victory and already leads the season-long standings by 195 over Federica Brignone, the 2020 overall champion.

Alpine skiing >> Marco Odermatt raced through steady falling snow, making errors in his run, yet still won a World Cup giant slalom by almost one full second in Val D’Isere, France. The Olympic, world and World Cup champion in giant slalom is almost unbeatable in his favored discipline and finished 0.98 seconds ahead of Marco Schwarz.

FIGURE SKATING >> Nineteen-year-old American Ilia Malinin brushed off a fall on his opening jump — the quad axel — put together a near-flawless free skate the rest of the way, and easily topped Japanese rival Shoma Uno to win the gold medal in the Grand Prix Final in Beijing. Malinin finished with a career-best 314.66 points, the sixth-highest men’s total in history under the current scoring system. Malinin capped a banner day for the U.S. after Madison Chock and Evan Bates won the ice dance for the first time. In the women’s event, two-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto won her first Grand Prix Final with a free skate set to music from Lauryn Hill.

— From news services