Paintsil sparks Galaxy to 4-3 victory over reeling Earthquakes
Rookie Joseph Paintsil had a goal and an assist as the Los Angeles Galaxy scored three times in the first 30 minutes before holding on for a 4-3 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes on Sunday night.
The Galaxy (5-1-3) took a 1-0 lead in the 14th minute when rookie Gabriel Pec used assists from Dejan Joveljic and Riqui Puig to score his second goal of the season.
Paintsil gave LA a two-goal lead when he used his right foot on a penalty kick to drill a shot to the bottom right corner of the net. Paintsil's PK followed a hand ball penalty on San Jose midfielder Niko Tsakiris. Paintsil found the net in back-to-back matches and has four goals on the season.
Paintsil notched his fourth assist of the campaign on a goal by defender Maya Yoshida to make it 3-0. Yoshida has two goals this season and three in a career spanning 21 starts over the past two seasons.
The Earthquakes (1-8-0) got on the scoreboard in the 32nd minute on the first goal of the season by defender Rodrigues. Cristian Espinoza set up Rodrigues' second career netter.
Puig used assists from Pec and Joveljic to score what turned out to be the winner in the 56th minute, pushing the Galaxy's lead to 4-1 with his third goal of the campaign.
San Jose again pulled within two goals when Espinoza notched his second assist on a Benjamin Kikanović netter in the 58th minute. It was the second goal this season for Kikanović and his first since the opener.
The Galaxy were forced to play a man down from the 70th minute on after defender Eriq Zavaleta was tagged with a red card — nine minutes after subbing in for Martín Cáceres. That led to a PK goal by Jeremy Ebobisse, who drew the foul on Zavaleta, and the Earthquakes trailed 4-3. It was the third score of the season for Ebobisse and his 10th goal in 15 career matches against the Galaxy.
John McCarthy totaled four saves for the Galaxy, who lead the Western Conference.
William Yarbrough stopped three shots for the Earthquakes. Yarbrough has allowed multiple goals in all nine starts in his first season with the club.
Joveljic has five goals and three assists in eight career matches against San Jose.
It was the 100th matchup between the two clubs in all competitions. LA leads the overall series 48-33-19. The Galaxy improve to 39-28-17 in league play with a 5-0-1 mark in the last six meetings, including a 3-1 road win earlier this season.
San Jose has lost four in a row for the second time this season.
The Galaxy travel to play Austin FC on Saturday. The Earthquakes hit the road for a match against Nashville SC on Saturday.
