SEATTLE – Seattle Sounders FC's season was on the ropes after failing to score in Game 1 of their Round One Best-of-3 Series at Minnesota United FC last week, which ended in a frustrating penalty-kick defeat.

They had no such issue in Monday night's Game 2 at Lumen Field.

The Rave Green forced a decisive Game 3 with a 4-2 victory, highlighted by a first career brace from homegrown star Obed Vargas.

"I just think the whole team was really super motivated to get a good result or a positive result tonight," Seattle head coach Brian Schmetzer said postgame. "And I thought it was there right from the opening whistle."

Vargas dominates

Seattle's 20-year-old midfielder was already enjoying a 2025 breakout, which has resulted in heavy overseas transfer buzz and the No. 1 spot in this year's 22 Under 22 rankings.

Vargas reinforced those credentials on Monday, scoring Seattle's first and last goals with a pair of edge-of-the-box finishes.

"Obed was, again, just a very, very good performance," Schmetzer said. "We talked before the game about finding moments to make an impact in the game, because a lot of times I will say, and it's more of an American football term, 'You have to make plays in order to win.'

"But what I learned from a very good coach was you can look for those moments to make an impact in the game. And I think Obed certainly did that tonight ... It's just another strong performance from a very good young soccer player."

For forward Jordan Morris, Vargas's eighth-minute opener was crucial in opening the floodgates after they couldn't crack the scoresheet in Game 1.

"I think it gave us confidence," Morris said. "I think we're at home, we need to win the game. The longer it goes 0-0, the more they're going to be happy with that, maybe try to take it to PKs or whatever.

"They're a tough team to break down. Like I said, when we got the first one, you saw from there: It kind of [took off] and we got two pretty quick after that."

Game 3 adjustments

It wasn't all smooth sailing for Seattle on Monday.

After racing out to a 3-0 lead behind Vargas's opener and goals from Morris and Danny Musovski, Minnesota stormed back with two clinical counterattack strikes in first-half stoppage time.

"We're not going to make those mistakes all the time," Schmetzer said. "I told [the players] the silver lining was I knew we weren't going to make one mistake like that again.

"So at the end of the day, the players, this team, there's stats out there, our roster has the most playoff minutes experience in MLS."

Still, with a winner-take-all Game 3 looming back at Allianz Field, shoring up those details will be crucial for Seattle to book another trip to the Western Conference Semifinals on Saturday afternoon (4 pm ET | MLS Season Pass, Apple TV).

"We've got to clean things up, gave them a couple mistakes in the first half to give them goals, but obviously we're happy with the result," Morris said.

"It was a great way to start the game. But there's little things we need to keep working on."