{"id":48914,"date":"2015-07-17T20:14:50","date_gmt":"2015-07-18T03:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=48914"},"modified":"2015-07-18T01:08:15","modified_gmt":"2015-07-18T08:08:15","slug":"la-galaxy-0-san-jose-0-1st-half-554","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=48914","title":{"rendered":"Keane’s Three Rocks Quakes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Steven<\/a>

Steven Gerrard celebrates his first MLS goal in the Galaxy win over San Jose (Photo by Duane Barker)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Tim Peterson<\/p>\n

(Carson) – Robbie Keane picked up\u00a0another hat trick and Steven Gerrard\u00a0 scored a goal in his first MLS game as the Galaxy blitzed San Jose 5-2 Friday night before a sold out crowd of 27,000 at StubHub Center.<\/p>\n

The Earthquakes went up 2-0 in a\u00a0matter of just three minutes in the first half with\u00a0Quincy Amarikwa scoring both. First Amarikwa took a cross\u00a0pass and easily knocked it by Galaxy goalkeeper Brian Rowe in the\u00a022nd minute.\u00a0In the 25th minute\u00a0Amarikwa\u00a0put one by Rowe right in front of the box. Unfortunately for the small conglomerate of San Jose fans on hand that was the Earthquakes last highlight of the night as the Galaxy ran off five straight goals.<\/p>\n

Keane cut\u00a0the lead in half\u00a0in the 31st minute on a penalty\u00a0kick that was set up\u00a0when\u00a0Gerrard was hit by an elbow\u00a0by San Jose’s Tommy Thompson\u00a0that earned him a yellow card. Keane then stutter stepped and fired the kick home. Gerrard got\u00a0LA even with his first goal in a Galaxy uniform as he hammered\u00a0a shot by\u00a0San Jose goalkeeper David Bingham on the left side. Baggio Husidic sent\u00a0a pass to the center of the field for Sebastian Lletget but it caromed off\u00a0San Jose’s Clarence Goodson and right to Gerrard who\u00a0rifled it into the net.<\/p>\n

\"Robbie<\/a>

Robbie Keane drills home his second penalty kick to complete the hat trick. (Photo by Duane Barker)<\/p><\/div>\n

The teams went\u00a0 into the break tied at two. Lletget almost broke the tie\u00a0in the 51st minute when he\u00a0took a well placed\u00a0cross from Keane\u00a0and booted it high just off the cross bar.\u00a0The\u00a0Galaxy continued to swarm and it was only a matter of time until they broke through.\u00a0It was Keane again who broke the tie as he controlled a free kick by\u00a0Gerrard\u00a0in the 64th minute and found the back of the net.<\/p>\n

“We definitely have chemistry but when you have great players it’s easy to connect,” Gerrard said. “We’re going to have a very formidable\u00a0line going forward. We’ll only get stronger.”<\/p>\n

Keane finished the\u00a0hat trick\u00a0on a penalty kick in the 80th minute. For the reigning MVP,\u00a0it’s his third hat trick of the year and second straight in MLS play.<\/p>\n

Lletget\u00a0used\u00a0his head in the 90th minute off of an assist from Dan Gargan to get on the board for the LA’s\u00a0fifth and final\u00a0goal of the night.<\/p>\n

“Our first 20 minutes were not good but our guys responded well,” said Galaxy HC Bruce Arena.\u00a0“Robbie and Stevie played well together. That second goal was really important to get us going.”<\/p>\n

The Galaxy improved to 9-6-7 with the win while San Jose dropped to 7-8-4.\u00a0Next up for Arena’s troops is a date with Barcelona in International Champions Cup action Tuesday night at the Rose Bowl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Peterson (Carson) – Robbie Keane picked up\u00a0another hat trick and Steven Gerrard\u00a0 scored a goal in his first MLS game as the Galaxy blitzed San Jose 5-2 Friday night before a sold out crowd of 27,000 at StubHub Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[11435,10063,272,11434,10081,10130,11331,11382,10120,11433],"class_list":["post-48914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-soccer","tag-david-bingham","tag-la-galaxy","tag-mls","tag-quincy-amarika","tag-robbie-keane","tag-san-jose-earthquakes","tag-sebastian-lletget","tag-steven-gerrard","tag-stubhub-center","tag-tommy-thompson"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48914"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48929,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48914\/revisions\/48929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}