Lehi » The tough stretch of road games is far from over, but Real Salt Lake believes it has reason to be encouraged.

Though it still has neither scored nor won on the road, the team has played well defensively in its last two road games. Coach Jason Kreis believes that will be the key to RSL returning to the form that delivered it to the Major League Soccer playoffs last season, and said that creating plenty of scoring chances at the same time it was shutting down D.C. United's strong attack in a scoreless draw last weekend was "another step in the right direction."

"Obviously, the three points and a goal are what we're after," he added.

That could come this weekend, when RSL plays at struggling San Jose in the second of four road games in a five-game stretch. The Earthquakes were riding a seven-game league winless streak heading into a game at Columbus on Wednesday night, including four straight losses in which they had been outscored by a 10-2 margin. They also had allowed a league-worst 19 goals, before meeting the Crew.

One crucial element in the last two promising RSL road performances -- before the United draw, RSL played well at Chivas USA but lost 1-0 after being punished for a bad clearance in the second half -- has been the absence of early mistakes. In each of its first three road games -- all losses -- RSL allowed goals within the first 18 minutes.

"That has been huge," defender Robbie Russell said. "It helps you build confidence as the game goes along, you don't feel like you're chasing something. What happens when you start chasing games, all of the sudden you open yourself up to counter-attacks ... so it's a big help" to avoid conceding early goals.

Injury report

Goalkeeper Chris Seitz is ahead of schedule in his rehab from a sprained shoulder, working some training drills this week and running to stay fit alongside defender David Horst , who's recovering from knee surgery.

Meanwhile, defender Ian Joy has been running and performing some drills this week, and expected return to team workouts next week, having not played all season because of a hamstring injury. "I just introduced myself to him," Kreis joked. "New player."

Help on the way

After months of searching, Marcia Williams has found the help that might save her life.

Doctors have finally located a promising match of umbilical-cord blood for the wife of midfielder Andy Williams , who has been fighting a rare form of leukemia with which she was diagnosed last year. Though it's not quite a perfect match -- it comes from a donor in Spain -- it's good enough that Williams will receive the blood in a transplant at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle around June 12, after another round of chemotherapy and radiation treatment next week.

"We're all happy right now," Williams said.

Williams will leave the team today and probably miss the next couple of games while he takes his two daughters to Seattle to visit their mother before the procedure, which Williams said is more like a blood transfusion than a surgical transplant. Doctors hope that the stem cells in the transplanted blood grow into new cells that ultimately kill the cancerous ones.

The treatment is still fairly new, Williams said, so there are no long-term studies available on its success rate. But "in short term, it has been great so far," he said.