Minnesota United didn’t allow a penalty kick attempt through the opening dozen games this season.

Loons right wing back D.J. Taylor has  now given up two in the last two games, and the one he allowed to Denis Bouanga on Wednesday was all Los Angeles FC needed in a 2-0 win at at BMO Stadium.

Meanwhile, MNUFC (7-3-4, 25 points) was shutout for the first time in eight matches and saw its six-match unbeaten streak snapped.

With a golazo from Mateusz Bogusz serving as insurance in the 82nd minute, LAFC (8-4-3, 27 points) extended its winning run to four matches. They moved ahead of MNUFC with the three points.

The Loons appeared to take a 1-0 lead on a corner kick in the 29th minute, but an assistant referee ruled Joseph Rosales’ out-swinging service cleared the end line before Micky Tapias headed it home. Tapias’ smile was erased with the call.

That was the rare offensive bright spots for MNUFC.

Later on, Rosales put more corners over the end line, to cut out those set pieces before they could reach the box.

Bouanga, the 2023 MLS Golden Boot winner, was taken down by Taylor in the first half, and Bouanga calmly converted a penalty kick. Taylor was also whistled for a PK on Saturday, but Dayne St. Clair couldn’t bail out Taylor Wednesday like he did in the 3-3 draw with Colorado Rapids.

Teemu Pukki returned to the starting XI vs. LAFC, but the striker missed a close shot in the 62nd minute and his goalless drought extended to 570 minutes since early March.

The Loons had beat LAFC in their first matchup this season, 2-0 on March 16.

Off to a strong start, and with the two-time defending champions in town, was Wednesday’s game the biggest of the season for the Minnesota Lynx?

Sure, coach Cheryl Reeve said pregame, because it’s the next one.

And the result is something the Lynx will surely learn from.

In a matchup of the top-scoring teams in the WNBA, Las Vegas pulled away in the fourth quarter for an 80-66 win.

Reeve said the Lynx defense was good enough to win, but the physicality of Las Vegas was problematic for the Minnesota offense that was too often stagnant.

“Our finest moments are when we’re getting in and out of screens quickly, when we’re seeking the paint and when we cut. … We just didn’t get that done with any frequency. Then Phee is trying to do something one on one, instead of movement, collapse the defense, play behind, and we’ve done that extremely well,” she said.

Napheesa Collier led the Lynx (4-2) with 18 points and 13 rebounds. She is trying to take the positive of when the game occurred.

“Now we can look at film, we know what it feels like we can scheme against it because we know what it looks like. And so instead of just trying to continue to play how we’ve been playing, we can go into things and get to things differently.”

A’ja Wilson led the Aces with 29 points and 15 rebounds, Jackie Young had 19 points and 10 assists and Kelsey Plum scored five of her 10 points in a key fourth-quarter stretch. Each entered the night averaging at least 20.8 points.

Entering the game shooting a league-best 47% from the field, Minnesota shot a season-low 36.9%. Its previous low for points was 82.

“We did get good shots. I missed some layups, we missed some open shots, Courtney missed some that she normally makes, we had some missed threes,” Collier said. “It was an off night for us. And, you know, kudos to Vegas because they played some really good defense. But we did miss a lot of shots that we normally make.”

Courtney Williams had 12 points and eight assists, Cecilia Zandalasini had a dozen points, but Minnesota was outscored 23-10 in the final 10 minutes, 26 seconds.

Down by 11 early in the third quarter, the Lynx got within one on a pair of free throws by Kayla McBride, but Kate Martin hit from deep and Wilson picked off a Williams pass and scored on a layup in the quarter’s final second.

Las Vegas (4-1) kept its hot hand into the fourth quarter.

Five points by Plum and a 3-pointer from Young put Las Vegas up by a dozen to cap a 13-2 run.

McBride scored from deep, but Wilson got four points inside and Young drained another 3 midway through the quarter to make it 77-61.

Miller update

Forward Diamond Miller, out the past three games with a right knee injury, underwent a cleanup surgical procedure Wednesday.

“She’ll be back,” Reeve said. “Scopes are typically four-to-six weeks. I don’t necessarily know they want to put that time on her.”

Miller had right knee surgery in April 2022 at the University of Maryland and had offseason meniscus surgery on her left knee that prevented her from playing overseas.

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The Saints earned their fifth shutout this season on the road Wednesday with a 5-0 victory in Rochester, N.Y.

The scoring started early, with a single from Michael Helman and a Matt Wallner walk putting runners at first and second, and an opposite field home run from Yunior Severino.

Adam Plutko seemed to be recovering well from offseason hip surgery, with four shutout innings.

The Saints’ Alex Isola added a run in the sixth inning, and Severino ended the scoring in the seventh with an RBI single into left field.

Game four of the series is Thursday at 10:05 a.m.

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There was a lot of hard contact made on Wednesday at Target Field, by both the Twins and Kansas City Royals — the Royals a little harder.

Nelson Velazquez homered twice and drove in three runs as Kansas City rang up Twins right-hander Bailey Ober for six runs, plenty for Royals ace Seth Lugo in a 6-1 victory in front of an announced crowd of 18,130.

The Twins entered the game with six wins in their past seven games but lost ground to the second-place Royals in the American League Central Division.

Velazquez hit a two-run homer in a four-run third inning and added a solo homer in the fifth as the Royals gave themselves a chance to split this four-game series that concludes Thursday with a 12:10 first pitch.

Salvador Perez drove in a pair of runs with a double and a home run — partnering with Velazquez for fifth-inning solo shots — and Bobby Witt Jr. drove in Kansas City’s first run and later scored in the third.

The Twins got good wood on some of Lugo’s pitches but mostly sent them right at Royals outfielders. Lugo (9-1) was charged with one run on six hits and three walks in six innings, extending his major league-leading innings pitched to 82 and lowering his earned-run average to an MLB-best 1.72. He struck out five.

Ober (5-3) allowed six earned runs on nine hits, three of them homers that traveled a combined 1,262 feet. He didn’t walk a batter and fanned four.

The Twins put the first two batters on against Carlos Hernandez in the ninth — a single by Jose Miranda and walk to Manuel Margot — but Carlos Correa was robbed of a double on a liner to third baseman Maikel Garcia, and pinch hitter Byron Buxton struck out swinging. Max Kepler then popped out to second for the final out.

Miranda gave the Twins a 1-0 lead in the second inning, hitting a fly ball to the warning track in left that scored Willi Castro from third base. But it didn’t last long.

In the top of the third, No. 9 hitter Kyle Isbel singled sharply to left and moved to third on a groundout by Garcia. He tied the game when he scored from second on Witt’s bleeding single into right.

Perez doubled to left to bring home Witt for a 2-1 lead, and one out later scored on Velazquez’s homer into the bullpen in straightaway center. It traveled an estimated 437 feet — with an exit velocity of 109.3 mph — and made it 4-1 Royals.

In the fifth, Perez hit a no-doubt solo home run into the ’pen to make it 5-1, and after Adam Frazier grounded out to first, Velazquez hit a solo homer into the left field bleachers to make it 6-1.

Lugo, meanwhile, was cruising until the fifth inning, when Trevor Larnach led off with a single to left. Lugo got Correa to pop out to first, but Alex Kiriloff walked to put two on with one out. Kepler then worked a 12-pitch at-bat but struck out looking, and Ryan Jeffers flied out softly to left to end the threat.

Right-hander Diego Castillo made his Twins debut, pitching two scoreless innings in relief. He walked one and didn’t allow a hit. In fact, relievers Steven Okert, Castillo and Cole Sands combined to allow one hit in four scoreless innings.

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