FENTON • A lot has changed for AC St. Louis since the last time the team was seen here. Steve Ralston, their best player, left to go back to Major League Soccer. Claude Anelka, their coach, was fired and replaced by longtime local youth coach Dale Schilly.

And the team? Well, the team had won three straight matches, two of them in the U.S. Open Cup, all of them on the road. For a team that has won, including Cup matches, just four times this season, things have never looked better.

AC St. Louis saw its winning streak end but its unbeaten streak stayed alive with a 0-0 tie against conference-leading Vancouver before a crowd announced at 2,432 at a steamy A-B Center on Saturday. The expansion squad may still be buried at the bottom of the Division 2 standings, but they've posted four straight shutouts.

"You look at tonight vs. the last three games," goalie Alec Dufty said, "even though we had shutouts and wins in the last three games, tonight we were 10 times more organized. The last three before this we were sitting back on our 18-yard line and looking to beat teams on the counter. Tonight, I thought we were the better team and had more chances. To see us come and play like we did against Vancouver gives us a lot of hope for the rest of the year."

"Tonight was the best we've played in a while even though we didn't win," midfielder Luke Kreamalmeyer said.

AC St. Louis had a man advantage for the final 25 minutes after Vancouver's Cornelius Stewart got a red card for sliding into Dufty, but couldn't turn that into a goal. Dufty made just three saves in the game, the only truly tough one in the 83rd minute when he had to stretch to get his hand on a flicked-on header from Randy Edwini-Bonsu. AC St. Louis' best chance may have come a minute before, when Mike Ambersley shot wide on the run.

The team has had only two practices under Schilly, who took over Thursday, and now heads off for an Open Cup match on Tuesday against the L.A. Galaxy.

"It was fun," Schilly said. "I've coached for so long, it felt very comfortable, sitting on the bench, evaluating players. It felt just right.

"We created more chances than I thought. We had four or five good chances at goal. I was really happy with us. I thought we would have to absorb more pressure. I thought we'd have to defend more than we did and I thought going forward the guys were really good."