San Jose Earthquakes 1 LA Galaxy 3 (2-3 on aggregate)

Next: 6 p.m. Sunday at Home Depot Center against either Real Salt Lake or the Seattle Sounders in the Western Conference final.

Missed opportunity: San Jose striker Chris Wondolowski reacts to a miss in the Earthquakes loss to the Galaxy Wednesday in San Jose. You could say much the same about the game for San Jose (Photo by San Jose Mercury News Staff Photographer Nhat V. Meye).

Who saw that coming?

A devastating three goals in 18 minutes including a two-goal explosion by Robbie Keane and a pair of Landon Donovan assists enabled the Galaxy to dump the Supporters Shield winning San Jose Earthquakes out of the MLS playoffs and erase a frustrating season when it counted against a club that had their number all year long.

Until now.

An typically late 82nd minute goal from the Earthquakes – they scored 40 in the final 30 minutes of games during the season – threatened, but did not prove fatal to the Galaxy.

Yeah, injuries played a role, but the Galaxy are banged up, too (will defender A.J. DeLaGarza be fit for Sunday)?

Here’s the bigger reason the Earthquakes lost via Chris Wondolowski: “I legitimately had three scoring chances; I missed them all. In the first half, we were down a goal and [Josh] Saunders was down and I tried to get some lift on the ball, but missed the equalizer. Toward the end, we had our chance to force extra-time, but couldn’t execute. It just wasn’t our night.”

Here’s the game story from our sister paper The San Jose Mercury News.

The let’s not get ahead of ourselves thought for the evening:

If @lagalaxy reach the MLS Cup, the only way they’d be at home is against Houston. That MLS Cup rematch would be a 4 seed vs. a 5 seed

— phil collin (@philcollin1) November 8, 2012