Riding a high of winning two straight games, the San Jose Earthquakes crossed the country to play against the New England Revolution in Foxborough on Saturday. The Revolution had not been able to score in the previous 325 minutes going back to last season, before today’s game. However, that streak would come to an end at 346 minutes when Kelyn Rowe would score the first of his season and the Revolution’s in the 21st minute. 16 minutes later, Rowe would also add another to make the Revolution 2-0 leaders heading into halftime.
This would hold until in the 61st minute, with the Earthquakes challenging after a corner kick, when the Revolution’s Scott Caldwell clipped Clarence Goodson in the penalty area. This forced referee Juan Carlos Rivero to point to the spot and award the penalty kick to San Jose. Chris Wondolowski then buried the shot to cut the lead in half and score his third of the season. Unfortunately, however, it was still too much for the Earthquakes to overcome and the Revolution played the game out and won 2-1.
Jermaine Jones was reported to be healthy after having sports hernia surgery in February, however, was not in the lineup for the game today. If in fact he is healthy, it was more than likely a precautionary measure by Head Coach Jay Heaps. On the other side of the ball, the Earthquakes were without Fatai Alashe, who scored the inaugural goal at Avaya Stadium, and Tommy Thompson who would have been on the bench, because of National Team call-ups. In their positions today, Head Coach Dominic Kinnear placed J.J. Koval and Jean-Baptiste Pierazzi in a 4-2-3-1 formation with them sitting in front of the defense.
Unfortunately, the energy that the Revolution brought to the match today coupled with the two goals the Earthquakes gave up to Rowe, ended up being San Jose’s undoing and led to their second loss of the season. The Revolution will hope to keep this streak alive when they play the Colorado Rapids on April 4, 2015 at Dick Sporting Goods Park. As for the Earthquakes, they will head back home to get ready to play Real Salt Lake on Easter Sunday April 5, 2015 at Avaya Stadium, and hope they can rebound back to winning ways at home.