Diego Luna wasn't going to let RSL's season end. Not Monday night, at least

The rising U.S. U-20 international star converted the decisive penalty kick as Real Salt Lake forced a winner-take-all Game 3 with the Houston Dynamo.

Diego Luna may have seen the script, but he didn’t have to like it.

Real Salt Lake was down after a 2-1 loss to Houston in the opening round of the MLS Cup Playoffs’ best-of-three first-round series, and Amine Bassi gave the visitors hope for a close out with a stunning penalty kick in the 28th minute.

But RSL has been down countless times before. They knew how to battle.

Jefferson Savarino pulled one back for Salt Lake, equalizing in the 70th minute with a free kick that pounded the upper-right corner of the net, past the outstretched arms of a diving Steve Clark in front of a sellout crowd Monday night in near-freezing temperatures.

Savarino provided hope. Zac MacMath provided a lifeline, saving the Dynamo’s first penalty attempt in the straight-to-shootout scenario.

All Luna had to do was finish off RSL’s fifth penalty of the shootout, and send the series back to Houston.

Easy enough, right?

When RSL manager Pablo Mastroeni asked Luna if he wanted to take the fourth or fifth penalty, Luna wasted no time: he wanted to take the fifth. He wanted “a moment exactly like that.”

“I had already planned that in my head,” he said. “That’s the vision that I saw.”

But why so confident?

“I think I’ve grown in confidence and the right mentality the last couple of games. It’s just the confidence they’ve given me, and I walked up to Zac right there, he gave me the ball, and I said: ‘Let’s go to Houston,’” Luna recalled.

“I think it was just having confidence, and putting it away.”

One by one, Luna’s teammates set him up. First up was Chicho Arango, hobbled but willing to play through the pain of a recovering hamstring to take the first penalty.

Damir Kreilach was next, then Savarino.

Brayan Vera finished his penalty kick with so much force that the breathless collectively bristled at once.

• Post-match reaction | RSL FW Jefferson Savarino, MF Diego Luna

• Post-match reaction | RSL GK Zac MacMath

Suddenly, it was up to Luna, the rising United States U-20 star with a career-best five goals and three assists in 23 games in his second season at RSL.

But that it was Arango who opened the scoring after missing much of the past month with a hamstring injury was not lost on Mastroeni. But Real Salt Lake needed Arango, and the multi-million dollar Designated Player stepped up to the spot.

“When you’re out for a month, it’s hard to mimic the pace of play that these games are. They’re chippier, they’re more physical, they require a lot of work,” Mastroeni said. “But from just the eye, he looked like he had gas in the tank when the game ended. He’s a part of the conversation: How do you feel, and how much do you think you can give at that kind of pace?

“Unfortunately, I don’t think he can go 90 — and that’s always the tradeoff. But if he’s not there and we end up in a tie, he’s our best penalty kick taker … The most important thing is he came through without issue to his hamstring, and he played extremely well.”