Sidekicks Rise Up and Down the Sockers : Dallas Breaks 1-1 Tie With Three Consecutive Goals to Take 3-2 Series Lead

There wasn’t much left to say. The Sockers have run out of words.

All that’s left is a trip home to San Diego. And if the Sockers can’t manage to beat the Dallas Sidekicks both Thursday and Saturday night, they’ll be home to stay. No Baltimore, no Wichita, no championship ring.

The Sidekicks pushed the Sockers into a hole Tuesday night at Reunion Arena, winning, 4-1, to take a 3-2 advantage in the best-of-seven Major Indoor Soccer League semifinal series. It was just a typical Sidekick victory, satisfactory but not pretty.

Even less pretty was the scene in the Sockers’ locker room minutes after the game.

Branko Segota was sitting and, most likely, wondering what injury would come up next. Earlier this season, it was a hamstring pull. Then he pulled it again. And again.

It’s still not fully healed. Now, as if that isn’t enough, he’s running the carpet with a bad toe, injured in Saturday’s 7-3 loss.

Frustrating?

“It’s just irritating,” Segota said. Putting a hand on his hamstring he added: “There’s still a big knot in there.”

Looking over a nearly deserted locker room, Socker defender George Fernandez was answering a question asked to many of the players: “Is this team capable of coming back?”

As a point of reference, it happened last year. The Sockers toppled Kansas City in three consecutive games after stumbling to a 3-1 deficit. Also, no MISL team with a 3-2 lead has ever won the series.

Nice, but that’s in the past.

“Our players just have to wake up and smell the coffee,” Fernandez said. “I think there are some guys on vacation in the Bahamas already. We’ve got to get our act together.

“Right now I’m pessimistic about this team. It’s never happy where you’re forced into a situation where you have to win.”

It’s never happy when a guy who finished 45 regular-season games with just three goals is your lone scorer, either. That’s Gus Mokalis, a defender. He tied Tuesday’s game at 1-1 taking a pass from Paul Dougherty off the right wall and crossing it by Sidekick goalie Joe Papaleo with 5:40 remaining in the third quarter.

That was it. After that, the Sockers’ offense turned in its room keys, paid its room service tab and checked out.

Segota was noticeably hobbled, unable to make his usual quick move around the defense. Midfielder Brian Quinn isn’t near his early-season form, before his strained arch injury. And this time, veteran Steve Zungul, the Sockers’ biggest offensive threat in the playoffs so far, was shut down without a point.

So all that was left after Mokalis’ goal was three more opportunities for the minuscule crowd of 5,407 to cheer a Sidekicks’ goal.

Late in the third quarter, Sidekick midfielder Michael King drilled a shot that Socker goalie Victor Nogueira knocked away with a dive to his left. Mark Karpun, another Sidekick midfielder, was ready and waiting, driving the ball into the net.

Next, in the fourth quarter, after Mokalis turned the ball over, Marcio Leite slipped by Waad Hirmez down the middle of the carpet, took a crossing pass from Smith and scored, giving Dallas a 3-1 edge.

The final score was an empty-net goal with two seconds remaining by Mark King, after the Sockers put in a sixth attacker (Kevin Crow) in favor of Nogueira.

The game went about as planned for Sidekick Coach Billy Phillips.

“We expected a defensive game and that’s what we got,” he said. “We were counting on Joe (Papaleo) to keep them below three goals and for us to score our usual four. When those two things happen we usually win.

It could be the Sidekicks have been underestimated all season long. This was just a .500 team in the regular season and, save Tatu, who is referred to by the Sidekicks’ announcer as ‘The Fantastic One,’ there are no real stars on this team. But they keep winning.

“I’ve got to give them credit because they didn’t really make an error,” Socker Coach Ron Newman said. “I think they’re playing better than us at the moment. We’re not showing our true face in this series yet. We don’t seem to have anything going for us now.”

And Dallas, it seems, has everything going for them.

“Hey, they’re playing good soccer,” Crow said. “My hat is off to them.”