VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Fafá Picault had a first-half goal, Stuart Armstrong scored late in his second career appearance and the Vancouver Whitecaps blanked the San Jose Earthquakes 2-0 on Saturday night.
The Whitecaps grabbed a 1-0 lead in the 35th minute on a goal by Picault and took it into halftime. Picault used his head to score with an assist from Ryan Gauld off a corner kick. It was his ninth goal this season and the 11th assist for Gauld.
It appeared the Quakes tied the game in the 68th minute when Ousseni Bouda scored off a feed from Cristian Espinoza, but he was ruled offside.
Armstrong gave Vancouver a two-goal lead in the 86th minute with his first netter of the season. It came after he subbed in for Alessandro Schöpf in the 84th.
Daniel De Sousa Britto had a career-high nine saves in his seventh start of the season for San Jose (5-21-2, 17 points), including one on a point-blank Picault header in the 21st minute and another on Ali Ahmed one minute later.
Yohei Takaoka finished with two saves to earn his seventh clean sheet of the season for Vancouver (13-8-6, 45 points).
“We started the game decent, had some good energy. We played three at the back to try to deal with their two forwards. They have dangerous players there, and we struggled a bit with some runs from midfield. They were getting beyond us,” interim head coach Ian Russell told reporters after the match.
“We tried a few tactical switches during the game and created some chances. Bouda had a good chance; he was offside. We didn’t generate enough in attack and were defending a lot.”
Defender Paul Marie was more blunt in his assessment.
“Tonight, the mentality was not right. We know it,” he said. “We were supposed to be on the front foot and we were not. We definitely need to shift our focus on Seattle and come out at 200%.”
The Earthquakes will stay on the road in the Northwest to play the Seattle Sounders on Wednesday. The Whitecaps hit the road to play the Houston Dynamo on Wednesday.
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