Dominic Kinnear didn’t want to talk Friday night about the San Jose Earthquakes’ impending return to Avaya Stadium. Not after watching his team finish up a grueling eight-day stretch featuring two games at Rocky Mountain altitude and another in Texas’ heat and humidity.
“After three games in a week, I’m really not looking forward to a game right now,” Kinnear told reporters after his Quakes tied the Colorado Rapids 1-1 at Dick's Sporting Goods Park. “I just want to get home. . . It’s just time to put our feet up, take a deep breath and relax for a couple of days.”
When the Quakes use that rest period to take stock of the results of their sojourns to Salt Lake City, Houston and Denver, it will be a glass-half-full litmus test. San Jose twice blew leads in the second half and lost their big-ticket acquisition from this winter to a potentially season-ending injury, yet nevertheless came up with five of a potential nine points, leaving themselves in great position after 10 games. The Quakes -- who finished last in Western Conference in 2014, with a 6-16-12 record -- now sit at 4-4-2 on the season, having played seven games away from home and just three in their new digs.
“It’s a little bitter taste in our mouth, but we’ll still take it,” Quakes captain Chris Wondolowski said. “If you would have told us at the start of the trip, we would have been very happy [taking five points], but it’s still tough losing it late. I’m really proud of the guys, it was a lot of tough work, and they left it all out on the field.”
As San Jose goalkeeper David Bingham put it: “Five points and we’re disappointed from this road trip -- I think it shows the character of this team, always wanting to come away with three points.”
Wondolowski’s cool finish put San Jose ahead in the 19th minute. The US international ran his club-record total to 94 regular-season goals with the Quakes -- and raised his career haul to just two shy of the full century mark -- by deftly settling a headed back-post pass from Sanna Nyassi, taking a second touch to avoid onrushing goalkeeper Clint Irwin and finally slotting a left-footed shot between Drew Moor and the near post.
“I’ll give him a lot of credit for having the composure to fake the shot first off and then find the little gap that was there,” Kinnear said of Wondolowski.
It was a goal made all the more impressive because it allowed San Jose to forestall some of the questions they will inevitably face on offense after Designated Player Innocent was felled by a torn meniscus against Real Salt Lake last week.
“I definitely saw Clint Irwin,” Wondolowski said. “He came out and made himself big, so I had to readjust, because I was going to hit that first time. But I readjusted and brought it down, and then was able to take a touch inside.”
Colorado poured on the post-intermission pressure, and after being let off the hook by Adam Jahn’s miss two minutes into stoppage time, the Rapids finally found their equalizer, through James Riley’s header off a Bingham punch from the hosts’ ninth of 12 corner kicks on the night. San Jose had allowed only three shots on goal in their first 2 1/2 games during this stretch; the Rapids had five more attempts on target in the second half alone.
It was just another symptom of a team ready to get back and take some well-deserved rest.
“You can definitely see that we had a lot of tired legs,” Wondolowski said. “We tried to mix up the lineup, but still, those last 10 or 15 minutes, we were just trying to stay organized, trying to stay compact. And you could tell we weren’t quite all there.”
