The Sockers, Without Much Firepower, Keep Misfiring as the Lazers Win Again

While Branko Segota gets well and Steve Zungul gets in shape, the Sockers’ offense continued to look out of shape in a 2-1 loss to the Los Angeles Lazers at the Forum Saturday.

For the second time in a week against the Lazers, the Sockers (1-2) fired plenty of shots, but again came up with mostly blanks in front of 4,885 spectators.

Segota stayed home in San Diego to rest his ailing hamstring. He’s due back in about 10 days. Zungul was also in San Diego, but not to rest. He’s trying to get fit enough to join the team by the end of the month.

The way this offense looked Saturday, the Sockers might want to put in a call to both high-scoring forwards and ask them to accelerate their comeback plans.

“With Branko (56 goals last season) out, we’ve become just like any other team,” Sockers’ defender Kevin Crow said. “We don’t have that one weapon that can score one-on-one against a defense.”

For 2 games, forward Zoran Karic had at least resembled a 1-man attack, scoring 3 of the team’s 6 goals. But, he too, fired a big blank Saturday.

With the Sockers trailing, 2-1, late in the third quarter, midfielder Paul Wright was tripped in the penalty box by Mark Frederickson. That gave the Sockers a penalty kick, which was taken by Karic.

Karic had scored on a penalty kick against the Lazers’ Jim Gorsek in San Diego last week, but this time, his shot was too straight and Gorsek was able to deflect it with his right leg.

Still a quarter remained for the Sockers to get even, but with the offense running on only a few cylinders, this proved to be too tough a task.

“To be honest, I’m not really worried about our offense right now,” Coach Ron Newman said. “We’re getting chances, but we’re not putting the ball in.”

Were it not for two shots that deflected in off goal posts in a 4-2 victory over Kansas City Friday night, Newman might be reporting this problem for the third straight game.

Last week, the Sockers outshot the Lazers, 35-21, but were beaten, 5-2, with one of the goals coming on Karic’s penalty kick.

Saturday, the Sockers had 32 shots to the Lazers’ 24. Again, however, only a few of the shots were dangerous.

“They just aren’t the same team without Branko,” said Lazers’ defender Fernando Clavijo, who should know. Clavijo is one of three Lazers who played on the Sockers’ Major Indoor Soccer League championship team a year ago.

“The thing is, they rely so much on him. When he went down, who could they look to?”

The Sockers looked to forwards Alan Willey and Poli Garcia, along with Karic, but found no answers.

Willey, who had a goal and an assist against Kansas City, was shut down by Clavijo (six blocks) and company. Garica, a 50-goal scorer last season in St. Louis, was not only shackled but failed to get a shot on goal.

Garica hasn’t scored a point this season.

“He’s playing out of position right now,” Newman said. “He’s a forward who should be finishing plays off, but we’ve had to put him in the midfield. He can finish a play off if we give him the chance. It’s something we have to look into.”

Otherwise, Newman said, everything’s just fine with his struggling team. Not even the fact that the Sockers are 0-for-10 on the power play is a concern to him, he says.

“It’s just that we have a lot of new people and we all have to get used to each other,” said Paul Dougherty, who led the Sockers with 10 power-play goals last season but has yet to score a goal of any kind this season. “I don’t think it’s time for concern yet.”

Late in the first quarter, Socker midfielder Ralph Black didn’t seem too concerned with Frederickson or Gorsek, maneuvering around them with a pass off the boards to himself and a goal for a 1-0 lead.

Less than 2 minutes later, however, Hector Marinaro scored on a shot in front.

As both teams struggled to get untracked, the game remained tied until the 6-minute mark of the third quarter when Waad Hirmez broke free behind the Socker defense and took a pass from Ben Collins.

Hirmez wheeled and beat Zoltan Toth for what turned out to be the game-winner. Hirmez, the ex-Socker, has 3 goals for the 2-0 Lazers.