By Matthew T.F. Harrington

SAN JOSE, Calif. – On a night when the City of San Jose’s Department of Environmental Services sponsored the match with blurbs regarding littering and pollution, it was the San Jose Earthquakes who properly disposed of the unwanted Friday. In blanking the visiting Colorado Rapids 1-0 at Avaya Stadium, the Quakes (8-10-5) tossed away a six-game unbeaten stretch to pick up their first win since June 20^th.

Clarence Goodson, returning from injury, netted the game-winner in the 53^rd minute and goalkeeper David Bingham collected the clean sheet to keep San Jose out of the bottom leg of the Western Conference table and pull within three points of Seattle for the final playoff spot. Colorado (5-9-9) meanwhile, falls five points back of San Jose in last place in the conference.

“I’m really happy with the effort,” said Quakes coach Dominic Kinnear. “The guys were good. A real good goal, a lot of second efforts on that part of it. It would have been nice to have gotten a second to kind of ease the pressure on us a little bit, but any time you shut out a team it gives you a chance to win and one goal was enough for us tonight.”

The contest wasn’t without its drawbacks. Defender Jordan Stewart played an integral part in withstanding an early Rapids onslaught, but exited the contest in the 27^th minute with an Achilles injury. While the severity of the injury is unknown, it appears he’ll be absent from the San Jose roster for a sizeable period of time.

“He’s a great soccer player and an even greater person,” said Wondolowski. “True professional in every sense of the word. I’m definitely going to miss him, he’s a good friend. He’s been playing great this whole season. Shaun Francis did a great job stepping in there.”

Another Quake was hampered by injury, but isn’t expected to miss any time. Matias Perez Garcia was limited to 50 minutes with a hamstring ailment before being replaced by recent acquisition Marc Pelosi.

“You could tell it was kind of hindering him a little bit,” said Kinnear. “We tried to hopefully get him going a little bit at halftime, and it just wasn’t happening.”

Goodson looked like he put behind his left leg injury in a fantastic effort that included stalwart defense and the winning score. Chris Wondolowski, playing closer to midfield in a new alignment for Kinnear, managed to place the ball at Quincy Amarikwa’s left foot. Amarikwa lofted it to the right post where Goodson could cash it in for the 1-0 lead.

“I’m not going to miss too many of those,” said Goodson on Amarikwa’s perfect feed. “He said get back there so I got back there. That’s such a good ball. It was a slam dunk.”

While Goodson was making his first MLS appearance since July 26, another player for San Jose was making his MLS debut. Midfielder Anibal Godoy made his debut after touching down in the United States just 24 hours earlier.

“He was brilliant tonight,” said Wondolowski. “He covered some serious ground tonight.”

Godoy landed in Los Angeles Thursday night from his native Panama, spent the night in SoCal before flying up to the Bay Area on the morning of the match. There was no hesitation for Kinnear to insert the International into the line-up and allow him to play a full 90 minutes.

“At this time in the season when you bring in a player like him,” said Kinnear.  “Or you bring in somebody new that you think can help the team, he’s not here to blend in and to work his way into the game.

Godoy, contrary to the expected, said he felt very comfortable in his maiden match with the Quakes, in large part due to the cohesion of the group.

“I felt like I had played with this team for 15 games,” said Godoy after the match through a translator. Godoy was familiar with some Quakes players previously and noted that their team communication made it easy to jump in.

On paper it still is only one match for Godoy, but he’ll get another chance to work on team chemistry on Wednesday when the Quakes head to Kansas City followed by a Saturday match in D.C. From there, Godoy and his Quakes mates will return home for a four-game homestand amidst their playoff push.

“This group of guys knows if we can stay hungry and stay united, we can win some matches,” said Godoy. “Today we demonstrated that we are a solid squad and if we continue to play like this we will reach our goal.”