{"id":330441,"date":"2026-05-24T12:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T12:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/330441\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T12:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T12:18:16","slug":"preston-judd-gets-san-jose-earthquakes-back-on-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/330441\/","title":{"rendered":"Preston Judd gets San Jose Earthquakes back on track"},"content":{"rendered":"

As has often been the case this season, Preston Judd<\/a> was at the heart of their success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s always the goal, to score goals,\u201d Judd said after scoring twice in a 3-1 road win<\/a> over the Portland Timbers<\/a> on Walmart Saturday Showdown. \u201cIf you had told me I was going to score two consecutive goals early in the game, I would be okay with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just happy to help the team in this game. It\u2019s an important one to put us in a positive mindset before the break.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Grit Reaper<\/p>\n

San Jose are off to a historic start<\/a>\u00a0in year two under legendary head coach Bruce Arena. However, they hit a recent rough patch, going winless over five games across all competitions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That all changed with Judd’s man-of-the-match<\/a> performance that also gave the club their first-ever victory at Providence Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe striker just wants to score goals every game,\u201d said Judd. \u201cWhenever I don\u2019t score a goal, it upsets me. I knew this was my last chance before a long break, so I needed to do whatever I could to get the ball in the back of the net.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amid injuries to superstar Designated Player Timo Werner<\/a> and homegrown midfielder Niko Tsakiris<\/a>, Judd has a club-best 13 goal contributions behind a career-best 11g\/2a.<\/p>\n

He’s now just two goals behind\u00a0Chicago Fire FC<\/a> striker Hugo Cuypers<\/a> (13 goals) for the Golden Boot presented by Audi lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s his constant work-rate, I\u2019d say it\u2019s his scoring,\u201d Arena said post-game of Judd.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna work with him to work a little bit harder, but today he has 11 goals. That\u2019s very impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Back in the groove<\/p>\n

The Earthquakes enter the World Cup pause in second place in the Western Conference, level on points (32) with first-place\u00a0Vancouver Whitecaps FC<\/a>, who have a game in hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf any team needs a break and deserves a break, it\u2019s us,\u201d said Arena. \u201cWe\u2019re pretty busted up. We\u2019ve had a loaded schedule in the month of May, and we managed to survive.<\/p>\n

“We barely kept our heads above water, but I couldn\u2019t be more proud of the group at this point in the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite this recent adversity, the Quakes are looking like legit contenders after barely missing the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs.<\/p>\n

“As I told the team, the second half of the season is going to be much harder than the first half,” said Arena. “So we have a ways to go.<\/p>\n

“But it\u2019s just been a fantastic effort from our guys in the first 15 games.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As has often been the case this season, Preston Judd was at the heart of their success.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[11413,135387,16465,11414,88,1084,90,89,125093,6532],"class_list":["post-330441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-match-reaction","tag-porvssj-05-23-2026","tag-preston-judd","tag-priority-match","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-earthquakes","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-saturday-showdown","tag-sendtonews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}