Karic Scores Three as Sockers Get It Right Against the Blast

Whew.

That’s about how Socker Coach Ron Newman felt after the Sockers’ 5-4 victory over Baltimore Friday night at the Sports Arena.

And he expressed it simply. “It can’t go on forever.”

Now he can breath more easily. The Sockers took a pound of flesh back Friday night. Baltimore, now four games ahead of the second-place Sockers, had won the five previous meetings.

“Anytime you play a team that has that much offensive power, you start to get nervous when they get within one goal,” Newman said.

And there are five reasons for that, the most recent being last Friday’s loss.

A look back:

The Sockers were the victim of a strange, game-winning goal by Mark Mettrick. His shot hopped off stray feet and open carpet with 52 seconds remaining to give the Blast a 3-2 victory.

So the 7,859 at the Sports Arena held their breaths throughout Friday, waiting for something strange to take this one away from the Sockers. And waiting. But this time, the Sockers went all 15 rounds.

“Everybody said before the game, ‘This game must win,’ ” said forward Zoran Karic, who led the Sockers by scoring the first three-goal hat trick of his MISL career.

Twice it appeared the game might slip away.

With 53 seconds remaining in the third quarter and the Sockers a man down, Blast midfielder Carl Valentine shot from the top of the penalty arch. Domenic Mobilio nicked the ball, which then bounced into the right corner of the Socker goal. That cut the Sockers’ lead to 4-3.

Then, after Karic scored his third goal to give the Sockers a 5-3 advantage, San Diego midfielder Paul Dougherty was whistled for a hand ball in the penalty box. Valentine took the shot and scored, and with 9:52 remaining, things were tight again.

But this time there would be no strange goals. The crowd clapped nervously at first and then got louder with each minute the Sockers held Baltimore away from the goal. Socker goalie Victor Nogueira knocked down a rocket by David Byrne with 40 seconds left, and people started to believe. Most of all, the players.

“We’ve had a lot of close games, and they got the bounces,” midfielder Branko Segota said.

This time, they didn’t.

The Sockers came out fast, scoring four first-half goals. It looked as if the would take charge easily. But in the second half, the offense faded.

“It wasn’t like we played them in the first half,” Newman said. “We struggled a bit in the second half. We battled them this time, but they’re a team that keeps coming back. In the second half, you couldn’t really see that they’re a team that has been on the road and was a yard short.”

The Sockers took a 3-1 lead, scoring as many goals in the first quarter as they have in the past two meetings with Baltimore. And they had scored three goals in the first quarter just one other time this season, Feb. 19 against Tacoma.

In the second quarter, forward Steve Zungul helped give the Sockers a 4-2 halftime lead, scoring inside the penalty box after Segota stopped the ball and flicked a pass to his right.

Karic scored two of the three first-quarter Socker goals. The first came with 7:47 remaining off an assist from Zungul. Twelve seconds earlier, Blast defender Tim Wittman tied the score, 1-1, on a left-footed, unassisted shot that slipped underneath Nogueira.

Karic scored again with 1:29 remaining in the first, taking a free kick from Gus Mokalis in the middle of the penalty box and drilling it to the top of the net.

The Sockers made their first score look easy against Scott Manning, a goalie who had melted their offense with spectacular saves in five previous meetings. Cacho crossed the ball into the middle from the right sideline, Karic made a nifty move, letting the ball graze his right foot and go through his legs, and Segota drilled it in. Sockers 1, Blast 0, just 1:49 into the game.