The final kick of the Rapids’ reg­u­lar sea­son was a Diego Rubio game-win­ning goal.

The stop­page-time stun­ner lift­ed Col­orado to their third straight win, 3–1 in Hous­ton, and dras­ti­cal­ly improved the club’s seed­ing in the MLS play­offs. Rubio’s efforts came with some help from Cole Bas­sett, as the Rapids’ home­grown tal­ent con­tin­ues to excel.

Here are three points from the Rapids three-point effort in Texas:

Hot rock

The Rapids have won three match­es in eight days, defeat­ing Seat­tle and Port­land, who fin­ished sec­ond and third in the West­ern Con­fer­ence, and the Dynamo. Two of those wins came on the road, which pushed Col­orado into a tie for most road wins in MLS this sea­son with five.

Coach Robin Fras­er had to be care­ful with play­er man­age­ment with the Rapids play­ing five games in the last 15 days after a month-long lay­off caused by a team-wide COVID-19 out­break. In Sunday’s match, the Rapids were forced to use some of their depth, and in doing so they start­ed the youngest line­up of the sea­son across MLS with an aver­age age of 23.6.

“This was not our best per­for­mance, but the abil­i­ty to keep our­selves in it and give our­selves a chance is some­thing that I think the team can cer­tain­ly take pride in,” Fras­er said. “We rec­og­nize that things don’t have to go per­fect­ly to be able to get results… Once you get into the play­offs, it real­ly is about the results. You’re not gonna be good every sin­gle night and can you find ways to win on the nights when you’re not good.”

The future is here

Bas­sett fin­ished off a ter­rif­ic year in style by set­ting up Rubio’s game-win­ner. The 19-year-old played the full game and had 62 touch­es. Putting one shot on and con­nect­ing on 79 per­cent of his pass­es, Bas­sett once again looked like one of the best play­ers on the field.

“Cole is incred­i­bly deter­mined, and he wants to influ­ence every game some­how,” Fras­er said. “It’s almost like pulling the reins back so that he can under­stand that at times his con­tri­bu­tion might not be a sta­tis­ti­cal con­tri­bu­tion depend­ing on how the game goes. But he doesn’t want to hear that, he wants to hear about goals and assists ”

Goals and assists are cer­tain­ly a way he left his mark on games. His five goals and five assists are each team-highs, as he made a clear jump in his devel­op­ment this year.

“I’m real­ly proud of what he’s done this year because as a young play­er when you get oppor­tu­ni­ties you’re not real­ly sure when you’re going to get those oppor­tu­ni­ties again,” Fras­er said. “He got a few oppor­tu­ni­ties ear­ly in the year and real­ly earned the rest of them. What he’s done is through his intel­li­gent play and move­ment, he’s cer­tain­ly helped us a great deal.”

Bas­sett is a can­di­date to win the MLS Young Play­er of the Year Award. Before this sea­son it was known as the rook­ie of the year, but it is now open to any play­er under the age of 22.

“His con­fi­dence con­tin­ues to grow, he’s only going to get bet­ter,” Fras­er said. “There are things that he needs to work on obvi­ous­ly. He’s a young play­er and we talk about those things as well, but over­all, you have to be real­ly proud of what he’s done so far.”

Fel­low home­grown Sam Vines fin­ished his iron­man cam­paign off with his 18th start of the sea­son, becom­ing the only Rapids play­er to start every match. Vines played all 1,620 min­utes in 2020. The 21-year-old Col­orado Springs native notched one goal and three assists at left back.

One more hour

The Rapids have two weeks off for an inter­na­tion­al break. When they return, they will take on Min­neso­ta Unit­ed FC in the first round of the MLS playoffs.

Before what will be the 14th post­sea­son appear­ance in fran­chise his­to­ry, Col­orado dras­ti­cal­ly improved its seed­ing by win­ing in Hous­ton. The Bur­gundy Boys jumped from sev­enth place to fifth, which helps them avoid the clear best three teams in the west. Mean­while, Min­neso­ta is unbeat­en in its last eight match­es but each of its efforts against Col­orado in 2020–a Loons win and a draw—were some­what flukey.

“They are a tal­ent­ed team and they have expe­ri­enced play­ers in key posi­tions and guys that don’t make a lot of mis­takes,” Fras­er said. “Teams like them can go real­ly far into the play­offs, so part of our job is going to be try­ing to find ways to unbal­ance them.”