Lazers, in Road Uniforms, Beat Comets at Forum, 7-3

With the Lazers playing so well on the road but losing regularly at home, Coach Keith Tozer decided a change was in order for Friday night’s Forum game against the Kansas City Comets.

The club would don their road uniforms and strike a blow against the home-arena blues.

It worked perfectly as Chris Chueden scored three goals to lead the Lazers past the Comets, 7-3, before 4,822 fans.

The victory, which ended a five-game Comet winning streak, was the Lazers’ fifth win against nine losses at the Forum. It was their most decisive home win since they beat the Cleveland Force, 9-5, on Dec. 9.

On the change of uniforms, Tozer offered this:

“We’ve been tame in our white uniform’s, and we’ve been mean in the black,” he said. “Tonight we were mean.

“These are our new home uniforms,” he added. The Lazers have the league’s second-best road record at 9-6.

At 14-15, they trail the second-place Comets (15-15) by a half-game and move into a third-place tie with the Tacoma Stars.

The Lazers started fast as Chueden beat Kansas City goalkeeper Ed Gettemeier a minute into the game.

The Comets’ Damir Haramina, who scored all three of his team’s goals, tied it midway through the period, but the Lazers jumped ahead again with two uncontested goals by Paul Child and another from Chueden, making it 4-1 early in the second period.

In his last 10 games, Chueden has scored 10 goals and has assisted on 8.

Haramina’s second goal a minute later cut the Lazer lead to 4-2, but Michael Collins hit from 20 feet to restore the Lazers’ three-goal margin at halftime.

It was Haramina again midway through the third period, tightening the gap to 5-3, but that was as close as they got as the Lazer defense, led by goalkeeper David Brcic’s 16 saves, helped preserve the victory.

Brcic’s counterpart, Gettemeier, was taken off the field on a stretcher after a collision with the Lazers Thompson Usiyan late in the second quarter. He was taken to Centinela Hospital Medical Center, where X-rays for a possible fracture of his lower left leg proved negative.