Strikers Show They Have Sockers’ Number, Win, 7-4

It wasn’t as if the Sockers had nothing to play for Tuesday against the Minnesota Strikers.

The Strikers were--and after last night’s 7-4 victory are--the only MISL team the Sockers didn’t defeat this season.

“We always seem to play them at the wrong time,” said Socker Coach Ron Newman, whose team finished 0-3 against Minnesota this year.

“When they beat us by a goal early in the season, we were still finding ourselves,” Newman said. “When they beat us by a goal early in February, it was (Steve) Zungul’s last game with San Diego, and that was a distraction.”

The Sockers, who took a 31-10 record into the game, best in the MISL, have clinched the Western Division title and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

The Strikers, meanwhile, are in a six-team dogfight in the Eastern Division. The win gave Minnesota a percentage-points tie for first place with Cleveland and Baltimore. But the other clubs in the division--Dallas, Pittsburgh and Chicago--are all within three games of first place.

“We obviously had a bit more at stake than San Diego did tonight,” said Alan Merrick, Striker coach. “But I certainly didn’t notice any lack of intensity by the Sockers. I think they wanted to beat us and put us in our place.”

Newman disagreed.

“I got the feeling on the bench that for us this was just a friendly little game,” Newman said. “It didn’t seem to matter when or if we made a mistake. This might have been our worst road game of the year.”

The Sockers were also missing Branko Segota, the MISL’s No. 2 scorer, sitting out because of one-game suspension for reaching 30 penalty minutes.

Even without Segota, the Sockers pulled into a 3-3 tie after three periods.

The Strikers’ Thompson Usiyan made it 4-3 early in the fourth quarter, and it remained a one-goal contest until the final three minutes.

Then, at 12:05, Minnesota’s Alan Willey collected his own rebound, maneuvered around Socker goalie Zoltan Toth and deflected home a shot off Kevin Crow’s chest as Crow hustled back trying to protect an empty goal.

“That was a terrible goal and the one which really beat us,” Newman said. “We were just thinking about pulling our goalkeeper at that time.”