WASHINGTON DC - The Chicago Fire continued their playoff dominance over DC United on Thursday, sending the Supporters Shield winners crashing out of the playoffs with a 2-2 draw at RFK Stadium.

The result, combined with Chicago's 1-0 win over United at Toyota Park last week, means the Fire win the series 3-2 on aggregate and continue their unbeaten playoff record against the capital crew.

Pushing forward offensively from the outset, the first half started off strongly in DC's favor. So much so, in fact, that United should have opened the scoring after only 30 seconds.

Though Fred's cutback from the left wing was right on target to Luciano Emilio, the Brazilian's shot left a little more to be desired. Pickens easily saved the ball at the endline, and before long Chicago would get a chance to flex their own offensive muscles.

This time it was Cuauhtémoc Blanco at the center of attention, but though the Mexican dazzled with his long run into the United penalty area, his shot buzzed over the bar, hitting the top of Troy Perkins' net.

The back-and forth play continued in the 12th minute  as Fred earned a free kick in a dangerous position to the left of the Chicago penalty box. Gomez stepped up and delivered a perfect in-swinging ball that somehow eluded the efforts of Luciano Emilio and a host of other DC United attackers, all of whom were crashing Matt Pickens' goal line with reckless abandon.

"We knew they were gonna come at us,"  Pickens told American Soccer Daily after the game. "But we've been playing pretty good solid defense over the last two months. And we've been finding ways to score goals as well."

Chicago found one of those ways in the 31st minute, thanks to some enterprising work down the right flank by Calen Carr. The California native controlled the ball well on the right flank before putting a picture-perfect through ball in to Chad Barrett in the penalty area.

With DC Defender Bobby Boswell out of position on the play, Barrett was free to take a touch and fire past Perkins to give Chicago yet another 1-0 lead over United.

Things didn't get much better for DC. Only two minutes after opening the scoring, the Fire doubled their advantage thanks to a typically opportunistic play by Chris Rolfe.

With the entire United defense focused on Barrett, Rolfe leaped into the fray to volley home a clever header by Blanco, stunning the nearly 20,000 United faithful into near silence.

The silence, didn't last for long, however, as United fans had another reason to cry out in agony just five minutes later. This time, the disappointment was at the opposite end of the field, as Marc Burch used some good pace on the left wing to cut inside the box.

He fired a shot that took a deflection and fell to the feet of an onrushing Clyde Simms. With Pickens beaten, Simms's effort was saved on the line by the feet of defender CJ Brown, who then cleared the ball to safety.

United coach Tom Soehn felt the immediate need for change, substituting Burch for striker Rod Dyachenko only four minutes from halftime.

Though the forward would have little impact on the game in the first half, his inclusion would be a key to a late United comeback after the interval, which started in much the same way as the first.

DC pressured hard and got a good chance in the 50th minute with a Luciano Emilio volley, but Pickens was up to the challenge with a sprawling save to push the ball over the end line.

Little else of consequence happened until the last stages of the match, with United looking despondent and uninspired, while Chicago looked alert and defensively ready for anything.

Anything but, say, a United goal. As soon as Simms' 25-yard shot beat Pickens to the right in the 69th minute, the entire complexion of the game changed. The fans became deafening. The United bench jumped with excitement. It seemed that, for the first time on the night, United had momentum on their side.

"It was a pretty good shot, but I got a hand on it and it should have been a save," Pickens would later say. "The crowd really got them back into it. That was their 12th man. We never should have allowed that first goal."

Now firmly on the prowl, it seemed to take very little effort for United to pressure the Chicago goal and even less effort for them to score.

The match equalizer was a goal that Soehn could technically claim a secondary assist on, as it was his substitute Dyachenko who played a perfectly weighted ball over the Fire defense to put Gomez one-on-one with Pickens. The Argentinean made no mistake with his finish, slotting the ball past Pickens to send RFK into a state of delirium.

From that point on, Chicago seemed content to play in a 6-3-1 formation, clogging up all of United's attacking lanes and limiting their looks from outside. It was the kind of situation where it seemed United would only get one chance to score, and took until the third of four minutes of stoppage time for it to happen.

However, the moment would house only heartbreak for United, as a Gomez goal was called back due to the his handling of the ball in the box.

Adding insult to injury, Dyachenko was sent off not long afterward for a cynical tackle from behind on Gonzalo Segares, and from then on the result was in little doubt.

"I don't think we came out flat early, but we let up a couple big opportunities and when you let some goals in, it's a big mountain to climb," Soehn. "I still credit our guys for fighting through that and still making it interesting. I still thought we were going to win the game."

ASD's Three Stars
#1 Calen Carr
#2 Cuauhtémoc Blanco
#3 Matt Pickens

Scoring
CHI - Chad Barrett 1 (Calen Carr) 31'
CHI - Chris Rolfe 2 (Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Calen Carr) 33'
DCU - Clyde Simms 1 (Rod Dyachenko, Christian Gomez) 69'
DCU - Christian Gomez 1 (Rod Dyachenko) 74'

Line-ups
DCU - Troy Perkins; Bryan Namoff, Bobby Boswell (Devon McTavish 59'), Greg Vanney, Marc Burch (Rod Dyachenko 41'), Ben Olsen, Clyde Simms, Fred, Jaime Moreno, Christian Gomez, Luciano Emilio (Nicholas Addlery 65')

CHI - Matt Pickens; Dasan Robinson, CJ Brown, Wilman Conde, Gonzalo Segares, Logan Pause, Chris Armas, Chris Rolfe, Chad Barrett (Bakary Soumare 58'), Cuauhtémoc Blanco (88'), Calen Carr (Diego Gutierrez 78')