Ruiz Puts Earthquakes Away

In the game that may have determined the championship of Major League Soccer’s Western Conference, the Galaxy and San Jose Earthquakes played either 93 or 94 scoreless minutes at the Rose Bowl, depending on whom you talked to.

They will be asking this question for days or at least another week: Was Carlos Ruiz offside or not on his winning goal in injury time?

Ruiz gave the Galaxy a 1-0 victory before 32,874 with his goal in the 94th minute. It was his 23rd goal of the season and eighth winning goal, an MLS record.

The Earthquakes complained loudly that Ruiz was offside before he took Cobi Jones’ pass into the penalty area, pulled back and calmly slid the ball past San Jose’s onrushing goalkeeper Joe Cannon.

“There’s no way I can tell for sure unless I saw a replay,” Galaxy Coach Sigi Schmid said. “We certainly lost games with the same sort of situation occurring, sometimes when you’re not sure of a call. If you’re in the game long enough, you’ll end up benefiting from it sometimes and you’ll end up losing from it other times, so it all evens out.”

The goal was special--though San Jose would disagree--even by Ruiz’s typical last-minute heroic standards. The victory puts the Galaxy (15-9-3) three points ahead of San Jose heading into the last regular-season game, at San Jose, on Saturday. Starting on June 8, the Galaxy has not lost at home, going 9-0-1 in that stretch.

Before Ruiz’s goal, there was a different kind of attack going on. Attacking soccer, you say?

Yes, that’s possible, even if there were no goals in the first half and none until the 94th minute. Instead, the Galaxy and the Earthquakes went on the attack all right--against each other--in the second half of a tense standoff between the conference co-leaders.

In the 73rd minute, Galaxy midfielder Chris Albright challenged Cannon for a ball in the box, sparking a melee. Jeff Agoos came to the defense of his keeper, pushing Albright, and Ruiz stood up for Albright.

Yellow cards followed thus, handed out to Albright and Cannon. It was that kind of unyielding, albeit, frustrating standoff between two teams, and the irritation eventually got to the Ruiz about 10 minutes later, as he, too, picked up a yellow card in the 81st minute.

Perhaps the best scoring chance came before the scrap. San Jose’s Landon Donovan hit the corner of the left post and crossbar in the 64th minute.

In an earlier exhibition, the Philadelphia Charge and San Diego Spirit of the Women’s United Soccer Assn. played to a 1-1 tie.

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In other games:

Columbus 2, Chicago 0--Eric Denton and Jeff Cunningham scored first-half goals as the Crew (11-11-5) defeated the Fire (10-13-4) at Columbus, Ohio.

D.C. United 2, New York-New Jersey 1--Ali Curtis scored on a breakaway in the 87th minute to lift United (9-13-5) over the MetroStars (11-14-2) at Washington.

Colorado 2, Kansas City 1--John Spencer scored the go-ahead goal in the 49th minute as the Rapids (13-11-3) defeated the Wizards (9-10-8) at Kansas City, Mo.

New England 2, Dallas 1--Taylor Twellman scored his 21st and 22nd goals of the season as the Revolution (11-14-2) defeated the Burn (11-9-7) at Dallas.

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Associated Press contributed to this report.