Hoesen bags 10th goal; Quakes survive RSL onslaught in road draw
SANDY, UTAH >> Dutch forward Danny Hoesen stayed hot on an unseasonably cool and breezy night in the Salt Lake City suburbs Saturday.
The Earthquakes remained lukewarm, drawing for the second straight match.
Hoesen scored his 10th goal of the season to move into a tie for third place on the MLS’ top scorers list for 2018, but the Quakes still haven’t won since May 12 after drawing 1-1 with Real Salt Lake at Rio Tinto Stadium.
“We showed a lot of fight, coming in here with the altitude and everything,” Hoesen said. “We knew it wouldn’t be easy. They played a good possession game, but we stayed in it for 90 minutes.”
San Jose is now winless in its past seven games. But the Quakes (2-9-5) showed improvement offensively and defensively, and Hoesen scored for the third time in two outings.
He had two goals in San Jose’s 2-2 draw with the New England Revolution on June 13 before the 10-day World Cup break.
“We are struggling, result-wise, but that’s why I am real happy that the guys came back and scored a goal and we got a point on the road. I am happy with the result,” said San Jose coach Mikael Stahre.
Dominated in time of possession in the first half, the Quakes
evened up possession better in the second half but scoring chances were few and far between.
“We had some great chances at the end, and I thought it was a neutral game,” Stahre said.
Quakes goalkeeper Andrew Tarbell stood tall, making save after save until the 54th minute. That’s when Stanford product Corey Baird placed a header to the front of the net after a corner kick, and Damir Kreilach cleaned it up.
The Quakes responded 10 minutes after Kreilach’s goal on a rare scoring opportunity. Hoesen’s equalizer came after Vako’s shot rebounded off RSL goalkeeper Nick Rimando.
Real Salt Lake had several more scoring chances in the final 15 minutes but couldn’t capitalize. Hoesen had a chance in stoppage time, but his shot sailed high.
“In the corner of my eye, I saw the keeper coming, so I thought I should put a little more power on it,” Hoesen said. “I just totally mishit it.”
San Jose’s Florian Jungwirth knocked heads with RSL’s Justen Glad in the 17th minute but returned after a brief stoppage in an otherwise uneventful and scoreless first half.
“Our defense did a good job there at the end of the game,” Tarbell said. “We were able to make a couple clearances, a couple plays, to keep it a draw. So it was good.”
San Jose got off just four shots in the first half, compared to RSL’s 12. That wasn’t surprising, considering the Quakes had possession just 27.7 percent of the time in the first half.
“We lost the ball too many ties in the first half, had too many turnovers,” Stahre said. “But we were a little bit better on defense [from previous games], for sure.”
The Quakes are gearing up for the California Clasico against rival Los Angeles Galaxy on Saturday at Stanford. Last season, the Quakes scored twice late to win 2-1 in a match attended by 50,617 fans.