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Tucson, Ariz. • Jeff Cassar called it a "big-boy game" for the young group fielded in the third match of the 2015 Desert Diamond Cup.

He wasn't kidding. And his players responded with a third-straight win.

Real Salt Lake, minus the majority of its first-team players — plus even some guest players from FC Tucson — defeated Sporting Kansas City 2-1 Wednesday night at Kino Stadium in Tucson behind goals from future Monarch Emery Welshman and forward Devon Sandoval. By topping Sporting KC Wednesday, RSL, now 3-0-0 in the tournament, earned a spot in Saturday's Desert Diamond Cup title match against the Colorado Rapids at 7 p.m.

The youngsters withstood a furious final 30 minutes from Sporting KC after head coach Peter Vermes inserted several first-teamers, including stars Graham Zusi, Matt Besler and Dom Dwyer, as SKC faced a 2-0 deficit. Dwyer cut into that deficit in the 66th minute off a corner kick when he snapped a header into the far post through a slew of defenders to make it 2-1.

"Their goal came off a set play and we haven't done a ton of defending set plays," Cassar said, "but overall, extremely pleased with the performance."

Four minutes later, Dwyer nearly pulled even, but Jeff Attinella stood tall. Zusi's long switch found Dwyer inside the box and he rifled a left-footed shot toward the far post, but Attinella pushed it away.

"You could kind of tell he was lining it up and not a lot of players in this league make that good of contact," Attinella said.

An RSL side that featured seven newcomers in 2015 and two guest players fended off Sporting's rally to secure the three points. Cassar again went with the 4-3-3 and Welshman proved to be a constant threat in the first half. RSL midfielder Luke Mulholland played the ball into Welshman just inside the box. The former Toronto FC striker opened up his body and bent his shot around the keeper and into the far post to put RSL up 1-0 in the 12th minute.

"He's been fantastic since he's joined us back in Irvine," Cassar said. "He's in a place where he's comfortable, he's got a coaching staff that's believing in him.

Sandoval doubled RSL's lead in the 47th minute after Mulholland pestered two Sporting defenders into making an errant pass backward. Sandoval pounced, by beating SKC goalkeeper Tim Melia to the ball and lifting it into the back of the net. The goal was Sandoval's fourth of the preseason.

The match followed the continuing storyline of when these two clubs meet: Pushing, shoving, kicking, screaming and cards. A total of seven yellow cards were shown — four to Sporting, three to RSL.

"We had a really young group out there and to put forth that type of different, man, I told the guys in the locker room [we had] a lot to be proud of and to keep our heads held high and it's only preseason, but that's a huge thing that this happened," Attinella said.

-Chris Kamrani

Twitter: @chriskamrani