The Colorado Rapids hosted the San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday night as both teams tried to break nine game winless streaks. Colorado changed things up a little taking their best defender over the last few games, Thomas Piermayr, out, and replacing him in the middle with Marvell Wynne and Chris Klute on the right side of the defense. Gabriel Torres got just his ninth start of the year, and the Rapids faithful hoped to see an impact.

Joe Nasco once again got the start in net for Colorado, and once again had a shaky start. A couple times in the first 15 minutes, Nasco came too far out of his net and San Jose almost took advantage of the miscues. Luckily for Colorado, they were able to get escape from those situations unscathed. Even though he over committed himself a couple times, Nasco also had a couple but saves for the Rapids.

Both teams had their chances in the first half, but neither could capitalize and would head into half even at zero. Colorado was lucky to escape the half holding San Jose to zero goals, but were unlucky that they were just wide on a couple of their shots as well.

Colorado would need to shore up their midfield play in the second half if they had any hope of getting a win. Dillon Powers was almost non-existent in the first half, and other than Nick LaBrocca the midfield as a whole looked out matched.

The second half started with no changes for either side, and the play on the pitch did not change for either side. Head coach Pablo Mastroeni wanted to come out and play more aggressive in the second half, and while the Rapids had their chances none were really dangerous until the 63rd minute. Jose Mari got the closest shot on goal for Colorado, but Jon Busch was able to get a fingertip on it and push it just wide.

Vicente Sanchez would come on in the 65th minute, returning from a knee injury that forced him to miss multiple games for the Rapids. Sanchez has been the most creative player for Colorado all year, but his inability to stay healthy and play on turn has hurt them in the long run.

In the 72nd minute Gabriel Torres would get a dangerous shot off that would just go wide of the net. The combination of Deshorn Brown, Sanchez, and Torres looked to be too much for the Quakes defense. Less than a minute later, Sanchez would get the ball again but was unlucky to find the outside of the net.

In the 77th minute, it looked like Deshorn Brown had put the Rapids on the board. Once again the combination of Brown, Torres, and Sanchez looked to be more than the Quakes could handle. Unfortunately for Colorado, Brown was half a step offside and the linesman nullified the goal.

In the 84th minute, Colorado would finally break the scoreless tie. Dillon Serna, Chris Klute and Gabriel Torres would connect on a fantastic play. Serna dumped the ball to a streaking Klute up the right side of the field, and Klute would find Torres open in the middle of the box. Torres streaked past the Quakes defense and was able to get a foot on it and into the back of the net for his third goal of the season.

The Rapids looked to have snapped their winless streak up the Quakes would have the last laugh and say if ours continues so does yours. In the 94th minute, Atiba Harris scored the tying goal after Jose Mari and Shane O’Neill allowed him to get loose and haul in a rebound and blast it into the upper corner of the net past Joe Nasco.

Both teams are now winless in their last 10 and have a combined eight points out of a possible 60. With the win by the Vancouver Whitecaps, the Rapids eight points out of the final playoff spot. While this is not an insurmountable deficit, Colorado would have to make some big changes, and hope for some major collapses by Vancouver and Portland, if they were to have any hopes in the playoff picture. 

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