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 Saturday, May 19, 2001 20:24 EST

Donovan scores first MLS goal

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) – Jeff Agoos was sure it wouldn't be the last time he presented a game ball to Landon Donovan.

Donovan, the 19-year-old striker from the U.S. National Team, scored his first Major League Soccer goal as the San Jose Earthquakes snapped the New York/New Jersey MetroStars' five-game winning streak with a 2-0 victory Saturday.

"He's going to be as good as he wants to be," said Agoos, the Earthquakes' captain and Donovan's teammate on the national team. "We gave him the game ball because it was his first goal, but he'll do more than that really soon. We play with him every day, and we know what he can do."

Using his trademark blazing speed, Donovan scored in the 83rd minute as San Jose (4-2-1), MLS' worst team last season, continued its surprising early-season run with a victory over the Eastern Conference's top team.

While Wade Barrett's first goal of the season put San Jose ahead in the first half, Joe Cannon's stellar goaltending and a steady offensive attack led San Jose to its third straight win.

Donovan and Ronald Cerritos had several decent chances throughout the game before Donovan -- in what was likely his best game since joining MLS from Bayer Leverkusen of the German Bundesliga -- slipped behind the defense, took a pass from Richard Mulroney and easily beat goalie Tim Howard.

"It was a good time for my first goal," Donovan said. "I thought they were getting a little more dangerous there at the end, so it was good to put it away. It wasn't easy to break them down in the back, but Rich played a ball right into my path, and it was easy from there."

San Jose generally had its way with the MetroStars, who looked fatigued while playing their third game in seven days under a hot California sun.

San Jose scored first in the 26th minute when Manny Lagos threw a beautiful back-heel pass to defender Barrett, who fired a shot into the far corner of the net. The goal snapped Howard's personal string of 243 scoreless minutes.

"Maybe being on the East Coast for so long and coming to this type of weather just drained us," MetroStars coach Octavio Zambrano said. "We were slow. We had a few great opportunities to tie the match, and we didn't."

Cannon made his best save in the 68th minute, when he blocked a point-blank shot by Alex Comas and then ripped the ball away from Comas' feet in the box. Comas lay on the ground with his head in his hands after the sequence.

New York/New Jersey had few scoring chances as the Earthquakes' defense, led by Agoos, was strong again. Clint Mathis, another national team star and MLS' leading scorer, was shut down.

"We didn't do anything special to get him out of the game," San Jose coach Frank Yallop said of Mathis. "We just played a solid match, and he couldn't get free."

The MetroStars, who will head home to New Jersey for two days before a match at Kansas City on Thursday, opened a four-game road trip after going 5-1 on a six-game homestand. New York/New Jersey hasn't scored on San Jose in 336 consecutive minutes, a streak dating back to 1999.



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