Coach Jason Kreis acknowledged that it's going to be hard for his players to think about the good things they did against the Colorado Rapids last night, considering they walked off the field with a disappointing draw after a trademark last-minute mistake.

But “I’m going to keep hammering it into them all week that there is a lot of positive stuff to take out of that game,” he said. “If we fix that one small play, we are all extremely happy right now.”

That “one small play,” though, was the crucial difference between taking the full three points at home while snapping a six-game winless streak and wilting to another in a growing line of disappointments, when the Rapids' Omar Cummings blasted the equalizer off the crossbar in the 88th minute.

And that colors everything, especially considering RSL allowed that to happen seemingly a million times before, and plays its next two games on the road — where it hasn't won all season. It could easily return home to play the final game of the first half of the season against Toronto in two weeks still sitting on only 12 points in the MLS standings, and there was even a smattering of boos to accompany the final whistle — though Kreis at least enjoyed a positive assessment from owner Dave Checketts.

But as he said, Kreis is going to emphasize the good things RSL did, which made the draw a little more encouraging than it might have been otherwise. Even without midfielders Javier Morales and Kyle Beckerman, his team played with more energy and fire than it had in weeks. It played confidently and aggressively with a new three-striker formation, and once again created chance after chance, the way it did in the early part of the season.

“Coach is right,” defender Tony Beltran said. “We have to take the positives from the game.”

In fact, RSL would have cruised in this one, had striker Robbie Findley buried either of his two clear headers that went wide in the first half, or if fellow striker Fabian Espindola hadn't angle his own header so low that it bounced up and over the crossbar early in the second.

And then there's striker Yura Movsisyan, who was finally rewarded with his second goal of the season and was poised to play the hero before Cummings equalized, but still could look back and nearly a half-dozen missed opportunities.

“I was really pleased with the commitment, the dedication, the hard work that our guys put in tonight,” Kreis said. “They really played with some self-belief, and I thought they really looked like a team that was wanting to fight and do all of those things together. … It was just about the guys working hard for each other.”