Sports

Red Bulls’ winless skid hits 6 games

The Red Bulls were just 30 seconds away from snapping their five-game winless skid and get their first victory since April. But they coughed up a stoppage-time equalizer, and suffered through a 1-1 tie with Columbus that felt like a loss and had them taking a tongue-lashing from their coach and arguing with each other.

After leading for almost the entire game on Mehdi Ballouchy’s ninth-minute goal, they failed to kill the game off in the final minute. He turned the ball over, they lost a pair of challenges in midfield, rookie Matt Kassel got beat down the right flank by Justin Meram and Rich Balchan put away a low cross for a gut-wrenching goal.

“With one minute to go you put the ball in the corner. Come on, one minute left you don’t let a team have anywhere near the goal,” said forward Luke Rodgers, who assisted Ballouchy’s goal. “Everyone’s fuming in there, there’s a lot of arguing. But it needs to be said.

“We can’t lose games like that. If we want to be where we want to be at the end of the season — that’s in the final winning the league — we can’t be doing that. That’s not good enough from any of us, any one, every single player.”

Playing without six regulars due to international duty, and after seeing Kassel come on in the 28th minute when Jan Gunnar Solli limped off with an injured right hamstring, the Red Bulls (4-2-7, 19 points) nearly won their first game since April 30. Instead the crowd of 20,393 left stunned, and Thierry Henry left without talking to the press, while coach Hans Backe was lacing into the team 40 minutes after the whistle.

“We shouldn’t have lost that game, there’s no other way around it. We had to keep the ball for those last two minutes,” said Austin da Luz after his first MLS start.

“It’s a tie but it feels more like a loss,” said Ballouchy.

brian.lewis@nypost.com