Lazers, the Hottest Unknowns in Town : 7-5 Win Over ST. Louis Gives Them MISL’s Second-Best Record

It is becoming increasingly difficult not to notice the Los Angeles Lazers, although the vast majority of sports fans in Los Angeles still are managing quite nicely.

In a city where the Rams and Raiders draw yawns until Super Bowl time, where followers of UCLA and USC approach football and basketball seasons with a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately stance, and where Dodger fans head for the freeways with the winning run on second and one out, the soccer Lazers have taken a “try harder” approach.

While that may have worked quite nicely for Avis, it remains questionable whether anything, including games like the Lazers’ 7-5 win over the St. Louis Steamers Friday night at the Forum, can make Los Angeles love the Lazers. Or even know what they are.

What they are is a team in the Major Indoor Soccer League, in their third year of existence and on their best roll ever. They are coached by a rather dapper Englishman named Peter Wall, who has taken them from a disastrous first season to a point where, with Friday night’s win, they are 13-5 and only a half-game behind the team with the MISL’s best record, the Western Division-leading San Diego Sockers, who are 14-5.

But if success breeds quick response in other sports markets, it takes years for it to breed much more than an occasional raised eyebrow in Los Angeles. And raised eyebrows do not fill seats in the spacious Forum.

The attendance was announced as 5,296 Friday night, but whoever was doing the counting must have had a stuttering problem. Nevertheless, Wall and the Forum contingent that is dedicated to making the Lazers something more than a reason to turn the Forum lights on when the Lakers and Kings are on the road, have taken a positive-thinking approach.

“I think we’ve got a pretty good base group now,” Wall said. “I know that most of the public pretty much says, ‘I wonder what the Lazers are?’ But I think, once they come out, they are entertained and want to come back.

“I think the first 7,000 are the toughest, that the next 3,000 come more easily.”

For those who bothered to come at all Friday night, Wall and his Lazers said thank you with a nice show. They clinched the game with a shot from midcourt by Stuart Lee that not only dropped into the goal on the fly, but completed his three-goal hat trick.

When it nestled into the goal unimpeded because St. Louis had pulled its goalie for a sixth attacker--just six seconds remained in the game. In all, there was only a total of 1:05 in the game where the margin between the teams was more than one goal. As the TV guys would say, it couldn’t have been closer.

Besides Lee’s big night, and three assists from team scoring leader Poli Garcia, the Lazers also got an eventful night from goalkeeper Mike Mahoney. Mahoney made three outstanding saves down the stretch to put his team in position to win. But he also had made the bonehead play of the game earlier, the kind of thing that Wall later referred to semi-affectionately as his team’s tendency toward “brain damage.”

With the scored tied late in the first period, 1-1, Mahoney, trying to clear the ball from his zone, dribbled it out near his own red line, then kicked it softly, and directly, to St. Louis’ Jeff Cacciatore. Cacciatore got over his surprise and gratitude just in time to gently kick the ball back in Mahoney’s direction--and lazily into the goal.

“That was what you call a bad goal,” Wall said, chuckling a bit at his own understatement.

But the Lazers recovered quite nicely, won with a flourish and left the field to the strains of public address announcer Keith Harris proclaiming them: “The Hottest Team in Town.”

Leaving only one question. Does the town know?