In six May league matches, San Jose Earthquakes captain Chris Wondolowski scored five goals.
Yet even the efforts of MLS’ most recent entrant to the Century Club were unable to single-handedly lift his side in their last May appearance, a water-logged 3-1 road defeat to Toronto FC on Saturday.
Wondolowski scored his eighth goal of the season on a 24th minute penalty kick, but the Quakes created precious little beyond that against a TFC defense which came in ranked tied for 16th in the league, giving up an average of 1.40 goals per game.
San Jose launched 17 shots on the early evening, but only two -- including Wondolowski’s PK -- were on net as the Quakes' five-game unbeaten streak crashed to a halt.
“I thought we had good possession,” said San Jose coach Dominic Kinnear, whose side held the ball for 56.7 percent of the match. “We didn’t do a whole lot with it, and they were catching us on the break.”
Wondolowski was at the center of San Jose’s lone tally, a quick-strike equalizer after former Quake Justin Morrow opened the scoring with a diving header in the 22nd minute. Barely a minute after that, Wondolowski headed a curling left-wing cross from Shea Salinas, the shot knocking into the upraised arm of TFC defender Ashtone Morgan and giving the Quakes a spot kick for the second straight week.
Wondolowski went low to goalkeeper Chris Konopka’s right to convert for career regular-season goal No. 101, moving him past Edson Buddle and into a tie for seventh all-time with Taylor Twellman.
“We played well at times,” Wondolowski told reporters at BMO Field. “I got a great ball from Shea, got a head on it. It was a penalty, so you’ve just got to convert that. That was pretty much it, though.”
TFC went ahead in the 33rd minute through Warren Creavalle, cashing in after Sanna Nyassi was dispossessed -- and potentially fouled -- by Sebastian Giovinco just outside San Jose’s area. It was the kind of situation the Quakes had been looking to cut out of their game-day diet -- an eschewal of the simple play leading to a giveaway deep in their own third.
After that, the Quakes failed to get any of their nine ensuing shots on target. Four attempts were blocked, five simply missed altogether. There’s no way of knowing what kind of an impact playmaking Designated Player Matias Perez Garcia might have had in terms of breaking down the hosts; the Quakes had hoped the Argentinean would be available but ultimately held him out due to a groin problem.
Ultimately, the Quakes were left taking a majority (11) of their shots from outside Toronto’s penalty area, a volume strategy that did not pay off. Even the addition of second-year forward Mark Sherrod, making his Quakes debut after an ACL tear cut short his rookie season in Houston last year, did not tilt the field in favor of the visitors, who connected on only four of 32 crosses.
“They defended well,” Kinnear said. “They sat deep and they let us play around them, but not really through them. And I thought our service – we had an opportunity to cross quite a few balls today, and give them credit for putting pressure on the ball, but I thought we were off a little bit in that department today.
“Sometimes service from wide and second balls are something that [Wondolowski] feeds on, and that wasn’t the case today.”
