After a couple of disappointing results on the west coast, the New England Revolution returned to the friendly confines of Gillette Stadium and beat the San Jose Earthquakes 2-0 on front of 13.732 fans.
Lee Nguyen, who was all over the pitch, assisted on goals by Saer Sene and Dimitry Imbongo as the New England Revolution moved to within 2 points of the fifth playoff spot in the east, and they have a game in hand over the 4th placed Houston Dynamo.
Revs coach Jay Heaps started Chad Barrett up top with Saer Sene and Diego Fagundez on either side and it was Sene who opened the scoring in the 13th minute.
Sene’s original shoot from outside the box was punched away by Quakes goalkeeper Jon Busch, bit good work by Chris Tierney and Lee Nguyen kept the attack alive, and Sene made no mistake with his second chance from outside the San Jose penalty area.
Barrett was once again impressive up-front using his strength and power to dominate the Quakes defense and he narrowly missed connecting with Diego Fagundez on a low pass through the box in the 20th minute, then chipped an effort inches wide of the far post after bursting down the left side in the 28th minute.
The Revs continued to press for a second but Farrell, Nguyen and Rowe all had good chances to put the game away.
But finally in the 78th minute the Revs wrapped up the win when Imbongo (on for Barrett) finished off a terrific move to make it 2-0. From the right wing, Rowe slipped a clever pass into the path of Nguyen, whose low pass inside the six was slammed home by Imbongo.
Bobby Shuttleworth has a quiet night, neededing to make just two saves to help the Revs keep their league-leading 10th clean sheet of the season.
The Revs are home on Saturday When they’ll host the Houston Dynamo in a promotion six-pointer.
