The San Jose Earthquakes may have been outclassed in a lopsided 4-1 road loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps on Sunday, but they’ve still got a fighting chance to make the Major League Soccer playoffs with just one game remaining.

Sebastian Berhalter, the son of former U.S. men’s national team coach Gregg Berhalter, had two goals and an assist to spark Vancouver’s win at BC Place.

San Jose (10-15-8) fell out of playoff position with the loss and still has 38 points, good for just 11th place in the Western Conference, where nine teams will participate in the postseason. Eighth-place Dallas has 41 points, while Real Salt Lake and Colorado have 40 points apiece.

San Jose will need a victory over Austin FC in its final regular season game on Saturday, Oct. 18 at PayPal Park. Plus, the Earthquakes will need plenty of help from Real Salt Lake’s two remaining opponents (Seattle and St. Louis) as well as Colorado’s final opponent (LAFC) on Oct. 18.

The Quakes’ chances of qualifying for the postseason may come down to neither Salt Lake nor Colorado earning another point.

“We’re going to do everything we can to try to win in the last game of the season. We don’t have control of things,” said San Jose coach Bruce Arena. “Certainly, a point today would have put us in a better position, but we failed there. But all we can do is, in the last game of the season, go out and try to get three points and see where we stand when all the dust clears.

“Hopefully, it’s positive.”

Vancouver goalie Ralph Priso made a goal-line block of a header by Josef Martínez in the seventh minute to deny San Jose an early lead.

Then the Whitecaps’ offense took over and San Jose couldn’t recover.

Vancouver’s Rayan Elloumi and Thomas Müller each scored a goal to put the Whitecaps up 2-0, Berhalter then blasted a rising shot from 30 yards out that slipped inside the post to make it 3-0 in the 74th.

San Jose’s lone goal came from Beau Leroux, who made it 3-1 in the 89th with a shot from outside the area that deflected off Vancouver’s Giuseppe Bovalina into the net. It was Leroux’s fifth goal of the season.

Any intrigue Leroux’s goal may have added was quickly stamped out once Berhalter scored his second goal in the second minute of stoppage time.

Leroux quickly turned his attention to another goal.

“We just need to finish out the season strong. One last game of the regular season. We all need to be together,” Leroux said.

Vancouver (17-6-9) now has 60 points and is tied with San Diego atop the Western Conference, two points ahead of third-place Minnesota.

HONORING THEIR FOUNDER

The Earthquakes wore wear black armbands in Vancouver for Sunday’s game against the Whitecaps in honor of Milan Mandarić, the club’s founder who died Saturday at the age of 87.

Mandarić started the team in 1974 as part of the North American Soccer League. He sold the club in 1977, but later bought back in and helped bring Manchester United legend George Best to the Quakes in 1980.

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“We are deeply saddened by the passing of our founder and longtime owner Milan Mandaric,” the Quakes said in a statement. “We are forever indebted to Milan for bringing professional soccer to San Jose and building the Earthquakes into one of the longest running clubs in the United States.”

In the late 1990s, the Serbian technology businessman became owner and chairman of English club Portsmouth, later getting involved with Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday.

Mandaric died in Belgrade, Serbia after a brief illness.