Lazers End 6-Game Losing Streak : Dallas Sidekicks Are Beaten, 6-4, Before 5,084 at Forum

The Lazers, admittedly weakened by a series of injuries, recently have been struggling to hold their own in the Major Indoor Soccer League.

After winning their first three games of the season, the Lazers went into a six-game tailspin and saw their record fall to 3-6.

For a while Sunday night, it appeared they were in danger of falling to 3-7, but with a late charge led by defender George Fernandez and midfielder Kai Steffen, the Lazers snapped their losing streak by beating the Dallas Sidekicks, 6-4, before 5,048 at the Forum.

With his team trailing, 4-2, going into the fourth period, Steffen took a pass from Darko Birjukov and shot the ball past Dallas goalkeeper Mark White at 11:46 to bring the Lazers to within one goal.

Eleven seconds later, Steffen stole the ball in Dallas territory and passed it to Erhardt Kapp. Kapp quickly centered the ball to Fernandez, who beat White to tie the game at 4-4. The goals were the first of the season for both Steffen and Fernandez.

With 17 seconds left in the game, Fernandez got the game-winner with a short blast past White, with Birjukov getting the assist. Greg Ion added an empty-net goal to put the game out of reach.

Lazer Coach Peter Wall was naturally worried with his club down by two goals and one period to play.

“Without many (healthy) offensive players I didn’t know if we could even score four goals,” Wall said.

As it turned out, it was a defensive player, Fernandez, who brought about the Sidekicks’ downfall, dropping Dallas’ record to 6-5.

“They were probably tired,” Fernandez said. “It seemed like we got our second wind and started to put the pressure on.”

Both clubs were coming off road games the night before, but according to Dallas Coach Gordon Jago, there was no excuse for the Sidekicks losing the lead, and the game. “We didn’t play well at all tonight,” he said. “Up 4-2, there was no excuse. We were just messing around out there as far as I was concerned.

“We had every opportunity to put the game away but we didn’t and paid the price.”

The first half ended in a 1-1 tie. Dallas took the lead 6:48 into the first period when Brazilian forward Tatu took a pass from Wes McLeod and collected his 12th goal of the season by drilling a 25-foot shot past Lazer goalkeeper David Brcic.

The Lazers evened the score 4:14 into the second period on a goal by forward Poli Garcia. Greg Ion got the assist.

Dallas the increased its lead to 2-1 on an unassisted goal by Marcio Leite 3:24 into the third period and then went ahead 3-1 at 7:03 when McLeod dribbled around Neil Gibson and beat Brcic. Kapp made it 3-2 when he took a pass from Gus Mokalis and beat White at 8:08.

Dallas midfielder Pedro DeBrito gave the Sidekicks the two-goal third period advantage when he tapped in a 3-footer past a Brcic.