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Lenhart comes off the bench to spark San Jose

Apr 29, 2012 - 1:15 AM Chester, PA (Sports Network) - San Jose Earthquakes head coach Frank Yallop made the most of his substitutes on Saturday as Steven Lenhart and Marvin Chavez both came off the bench for the final 30 minutes to help the club to a 2-1 win over the Philadelphia Union at PPL Park.

Chavez set up Lenhart's first goal with 15 minutes to play, only for the Union's Gabriel Gomez to level the match seven minutes later and appear to help his side to a draw.

But Chavez and Lenhart combined once more in the 93rd minute with Lenhart heading home the winning goal from a Chavez cross to make Yallop's substitutions look like a stroke of genius, at least for one night.

San Jose threatened twice in the opening 20 minutes while Philadelphia's Michael Farfan struck the crossbar on the half-hour mark.

However, it wasn't until both Lenhart and Chavez came off the bench in the 60th minute that the scoring began.

Chavez turned past a defender and drove a nice cross to the back post for Lenhart to head home in the 76th minute.

The Earthquakes appeared to have given away all three points in the 83rd when Danny Mwanga collected a loose ball and dropped it back for Gomez to lash past goalkeeper Jon Busch with a first-time strike.

A San Jose goal was ruled out for a questionable offside decision in the 89th minute, but Lenhart made that call irrelevant when a right-wing cross from Chavez picked him out inside the six-yard box for a simple header past a helpless Zac MacMath in the Union net.

The win gives San Jose five wins from its last six games to remain atop the Western Conference.