Sometimes, in football as in life, it’s just not your night. But even when that’s the case, a team can ride out the storm and still take the three points. And so it was last night: the Black-and-Red overcame a frustrating first half by leaning on the back of captain Jaime Moreno, whose silky second-half brace led them to a 2-1 victory over a less-than-stellar FC Dallas team.

As Ben Olsen succinctly put it: “This ain’t my first rodeo with Jaime Moreno. You just never count him out.”

The game was an appropriate enough display on an evening when Moreno was honored for being the first player in MLS history to record 100 goals and 100 assists. Moreno looked prime from the get go — proving that while he might have the experience of a 35 year old, he’s still got the touch, finishing ability, and class of someone ten years younger.

“It doesn’t happen very often; those moments are special,” Moreno said after his 17th career multi-goal game. “My goal is to maintain that level.”

Moreno was far from the team’s only contributor on the evening. Add Milos Kocik to the long list of rookies who have played a vital part in the opening salvo to D.C. United’s 2009 season. The 23-year-old Serbian-born keeper — who recorded 29 shutouts in his last two seasons at Loyola (MD), and had an undefeated record in 2008 — made several key efforts in the last fifteen minutes to preserve the victory, his second over Dallas in two weeks.

“It was like a boxing match tonight,” Kocic said of the game, and the season-at-large. “It’s a fight every single day. The coaches are making a decision before every game and you have to be ready.”

It all wasn’t easy going for Kocic — “I thought he got fouled a couple of times. I don’t think [the referees] gave him enough respect,” said coach Tom Soehn — and he almost gifted Dallas a goal in the seventh minute, after his attempted clearance went straight into the legs of Cooper. But, for the most part, he was a solid replacement for usual first-team keeper Louis Crayton, who had the night off.