Ah, the life of an Earthquake.
After three road games in eight days, at 4,450 feet elevation in Utah, in Texas humidity, and a mile high at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, Coach Dominic Kinnear’s resilient team returned home with five hard-earned points and a few weary smiles.
The Quakes’ successful 1-0-2 trip concluded with a heartfelt 1-1 draw against the Colorado Rapids on a rainy Friday night. The two teams also drew three times in 2014.
“Yeah, to go unbeaten on a road trip, three games in eight days, when you look at the conditions we played in, which is altitude, a little bit of heat and humidity, and then back up to higher altitude, it’s positive,” Kinnear said. “Here at the end, we could have been 2-nil up and then we could have been 2-1 down.
“So it was a funny last little eight minutes to the game there, but I give a ton of credit to the team and the amount of effort they put into these three games. I think it’s very positive for us.”
Two piercing headers, by the Quakes’ Sanna Nyassi and Rapids’ James Riley, effectively accounted for the result.
In the 19th minute, Nyassi headed the ball across the box after a corner kick by Shea Salinas popped out to him. The ball found Chris Wondolowski unmarked at the back post, and he coolly cut back onto his left foot and slipped the shot into the near corner past keeper Clint Irwin.
It was a classic finisher’s goal, and the 98th of Wondo’s remarkable MLS career.
"I tried losing my marker far post, and the ball kind of popped out," Wondo said. "Sanna Nyassi did a great job of heading it back in and found me, and I was just able to finish, so great play by Sanna.”
Wondo attributed his sleight of foot to Irwin’s positioning.
“I definitely saw Clint Irwin. He came out and made himself really big,” Wondo said. “I had to readjust. Usually I'm going to try that first time, but kind of readjust and bring it down and then was able to take a touch inside.”
Quakes keeper David Bingham, who was a brilliant overall with four saves, finally saw the ball land in his own net in stoppage time. He came out to punch away a corner kick, but the ball didn’t go far enough. Riley headed it back over a group of defenders and into the far corner of the goal.
So the teams shared the points, but the Quakes took some comfort in knowing that they got something tangible from each of three challenging road games, also including a 1-1 draw against Real Salt Lake and a 1-0 win over the Houston Dynamo.
The Quakes tried to hang on against Colorado's heavy late pressure, but fatigue factored into the equation.
"It's been a long road trip, so the last about 20 minutes, we were pretty tired,” Bingham said. “We were extremely hard to break down though throughout the game. We did well minimizing their chances. It’s a bit unfortunate they go out on a set piece, that’s kind of our bread and butter, but props to them, they fought the whole game.”
Wondo had mixed emotions in the aftermath. The Quakes also let a one-goal lead slip away against Real Salt Lake. Nine points in eight days would have been nice, but funny things happen in MLS games, especially at altitude.
“A bit exhausted,” Wondo said. “We had three road games in a week in tough places -- heat, humidity and altitude -- so to come away with a point, we will take it, but it’s very frustrating to lose in the lead, especially late in the game on a set piece. We take pride in being very strong on set pieces and in our defensive third, so it's a little bitter taste in our mouth, but we will still take it.
"You can definitely see that we had a lot of tired legs," he continued. "We tried to mix up the lineup, but still those last 10 to 15 minutes we were just kind of trying to stay organized, trying to stay compact, and you can tell we weren't quite all there.”
The Quakes had four new starters in Colorado -- midfielders Khari Stephenson, Tommy Thompson and Cordell Cato and defender Paulo Renato.
Thompson, 19, in his first start of the season, showed some of his trademark attacking flare and nearly scored in the 30th minute, but his shot was knocked out by Irwin.
Kinnear thought the team played well for the first 35 or 40 minutes, holding the ball, creating pressure, moving well and passing well out of pressure.
But Bingham saved them late in the first half, denying the dangerous Gabriel Torres and Dillon Powers.
“We were giving the ball away at the very end of the first half,” Kinnear said. “We had a real good first half, and we made a couple of boo-boos there that David had to bail us out a little bit. In saying that, I thought we did OK”.
San Jose, which is 2-1-2 over its past five matches, including four games on the road, will host the Columbus Crew on Saturday. It will mark Quakes’ first home game since a 1-0 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps FC on April 16.
