By: Joe Lami

The San Jose Earthquakes earned their second home victory of the year on Saturday as they defeated the Vancouver Whitecaps by the score of 1-0 for their first shut out of the year.  Credit goes to the back line of Marvell Wynne, Victor Bernandez, Clarence Goodson and Cordell Cato.  Quakes captain, Chris Wondolowski gave them credit where it was due, mentioning “we have to credit the back wall for the shutout, they played amazing tonight.”

Vancouver entered the game with 13 points in six games, leading all MLS teams, but sixth place in the Western Conference San Jose was able to put together their famous last minute goonies magic to get the victory.’

The Quakes owned Vancouver much of the game outshooting the Caps 12-5, but weren’t able to put the finishing touch on an attack until the 75th minute when Sanna Nyassi fired a rocket off the left boot into the left corner for the lead.  Quakes’ manager, Dominic Kinnear, mentioned “the last pass was still a bit off”.  The goal came off a double rebound, as Vancouver was able to get into the shooting lanes of both Cordell Cado and Matias Perez Garica shots.

Though the Caps were able to put up five shots, none of them were on target. San Jose Goalkeeper, David Bingham, jokingly said “yeah, I have not problem with not having to make any saves”. Wondolowski added “to keep them to zero shots is incredible”.

San Jose out earned corner kicks 7-1 over the Caps.  Three of which came in a span of two minutes early in the second half. The Earthquakes best chance off a corner came in the 69th minute, when it was taken short from the right corner.  The cross was beautiful into the box finding the foot of Clarence Goodson off a bounce.  Unfortunately Goodson wasn’t able to handle it and just missed the wide open net to the right.  Goodson commented on the miscue “it was a good run, the one I wanted to make. I was just a split second too late”.

Wondolowski was subbed in the 64th minute due to not feeling well.  The Quakes’ striker mentioned post-game “I wasn’t 100%, so Dominic and I made the best decision to help the team”.

The game was also extremely physical with a total of six yellow cards being issued, as well as two red cards, one to each team, that were issued in the 88th minute.  The cards were handed to the Quakes’ Adam Jahn and Vancouver’s Paolo Tornaghi.

The win for San Jose ends a two-game losing skid and ups their record to 3-3, while Vancouver drops to 4-2-1, as they’ve played the most games in MLS.