HOUSTON -- The Houston Dynamo still aren't sure how to react to Sunday's gut-wrenching loss to the New York Red Bulls.
For the first time in the club's short history in the Bayou City, they went down to defeat in a game in the MLS Cup Playoffs, falling 3-0 to the New York Red Bulls in the second leg of their Western Conference Semifinal Series. The two-time defending MLS champions were eliminated from the postseason 4-1 on aggregate.
Their season ended eerily similar to how it started, and that brings up one of the questions that will be next to impossible to answer as time helps to ease the pain of the first-ever home postseason defeat: How could this happen?
The Orange had trouble finding the back of the net during the first month of the regular season, but it was too early to push the panic button despite the 0-2-4 start.
Sunday, they created many chances to take the early lead, tie the game or even get back into the match after falling behind by two goals in the first half. But it wasn't meant to be.
New York took care of its chances and will go down in history as the first team to knock out the Dynamo from the playoffs. They will take that long flight from the East Coast to Salt Lake City for the chance to play in the MLS Cup Final later this month at The Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif.
"It was just wasn't our game," said forward Kei Kamara, who started Sunday and scored the game-tying goal at New York last weekend. "No matter what we did, the game just wasn't for us. I believe in destiny and I feel like, I don't know, that today I felt like it just wasn't going to happen.
"Since I have been here things have been really great for us. But today, we went out there and tried our best, we had chance after chance, but our shots just were not going into the back of the net. It's just not our day."
Head coach Dominic Kinnear did not blame the playing surface, which was torn up Saturday when the University of Houston played Tulane less than 24 hours before Sunday's match. He said his team had enough scoring chances to win three or four games, but he did not like the handball call against midfielder Ricardo Clark that led to Juan Pablo Angel's penalty kick that gave the Red Bulls a 2-0 lead in the 36th minute.
"That was not a penalty," Kinnear said.
Kinnear did have issue with the decision, but he did not blame the referees for the loss. Neither did any of his players, who realize the reason they were on the short end of the score was due to their inability to convert against New York 'keeper Danny Cepero.
"The ball wouldn't cross the goal line for the crossbar, the goalkeeper, the posts, the defender, and if we had just kept on playing, if we were still out there playing right now, I don't know that we would have scored," said Kinnear.
Dwayne De Rosario was quick to praise Cepero and quickly rebuffed any notion that the Dynamo entered the game a little too confident after last week's late 1-1 draw in the first leg at New York.
"We know we had our chances today, we hit some posts, but (Cepero) was making some big saves as well," said De Rosario. "Coming in, I think in the back of their minds, they did not come in here expecting to do this. They knew how difficult it was to play in front of our fans and inside this building.
"I think though, that if you look at the number of chances that each team had, if we finish them, it is a different game."
De Rosario agreed that Angel's goal ball probably turned the tide, despite the Orange's effort to overcome an ill-timed mistake by one of the team's best and most talented all-around players.
"I thought we pressured them all over the field, but things just went their way," said De Rosario. "They got that penalty kick and that put us behind a little bit more going into the second half. That really made things a little bit harder but we never gave up."
The locker room was a grim site, relatively speaking, after Sunday's match. There was no music, and barely a sound other than the footsteps of reporters pacing while waiting to get reaction from any Dynamo player willing to share their feelings about the elimination.
Brad Davis, who had his share of chances throughout the match, tried to talk about the team's great season and its upcoming CONCACAF Champions League match. But even in closing, he still could not believe the Dynamo are not going to Salt Lake City next weekend.
"It's kind of shocking right now, and it's just not setting in," said Davis. "Obviously, we did not prepare for (how to react to losing). If we could do it all over, I would bet everything I have on the fact that we would come out with a win. We are still a great team and we still have a great group of guys here.
"We have really grown a lot as a team and gone through quite a lot this season and this is just another thing. We are going to be upset for a little while, but I think we will come through it."
Emery Satisfied With Draw
Copa Del Rey Preview: Atlético Madrid - Orihuela
Twist of fate pays off for De Rosario
