Sockers Use Just Enough to Stay in Front of Storm
Sockers Friday night played like a guy who doesn’t want to beat his kid brother too badly in a foot race. They kept taking these big leads, and then they would sort of slow down and let the St. Louis Storm catch up.
Call it pacing. Call it a collective mental lapse. Call it anything you want, but give them this. It worked. The Sockers (3-2) finally pulled away for good and defeated the Storm, 7-4, at the San Diego Sports Arena. In the process, they gave the 7,487 in attendance a lot to shout about.
“We were a little bit lax defensively,” Socker Coach Ron Newman said. “Sometimes we thought we were going to score goals much easier and we didn’t tighten up quite well enough in the back.”
The night ended on a sour note, with three Storm players being sent to Sharp Cabrillo Hospital by ambulance to have injuries checked: Gary Heale (bruised ribs), Gus Mokalis (medial collateral) and Claudio De Oliveira (dislocated shoulder).
The game bounced along like this:
First the Sockers led, 3-0.
St Louis (1-5) made it 3-2.
Then the Sockers led, 5-2. By then, midfielder Jacques Ladouceur had scored two goals for the first time since Jan. 8, 1988.
Soon, St. Louis made it 5-4.
Then, Socker defender Ralph Black scored his second goal of the season with 6:45 remaining in the third quarter. Midfielder Rod Castro added his second goal of the game 8:30 into the fourth quarter. A bit of running around followed, and soon the Sockers had their second consecutive victory.
Newman is fond of saying he likes to get new faces in the lineup to keep the veterans hungry. Ladouceur is sort of a new face. Castro is a true one.
Ladouceur played four seasons with the Sockers before taking last year off to run his own network marketing business. Castro is fresh off a 55-goal season with Memphis Storm of the American Indoor Soccer Assn. He likes these Major Indoor Soccer League crowds a lot.
“It psyches me up,” he said. “In Memphis we averaged less than 2,000 a game, so it was a little bit of a letdown.”
Castro opened the scoring 59 seconds into Friday’s game, taking a pass from midfielder Brian Quinn and quickly releasing a shot that traveled into the left corner of the Storm goal. Castro has been dubbed “The Rocket” since his arrival in San Diego. He’s not sure how he got the name, but guesses that one of the television announcers meant to call him a rookie and said “Rocket” instead. Whatever.
Ladouceur’s goals gave the Sockers leads of 2-0 and 5-2 in the first half. His first goal came with 10:48 remaining in the first quarter, following Castro’s goal. Waad Hrimez advanced the ball down the middle of the carpet and passed left. By that time, Ladouceur had gotten behind Storm defender Diego Mandagaran and sent the ball into the right corner of the goal.
With 6:46 remaining in the first quarter, Segota flew by former Socker Fernando Clavijo to meet a Kevin Crow pass, score and give the Sockers a 3-0 lead.
St. Louis closed to within 3-2 before the quarter ended on goals from Thompson Usiyan (3:37) and Godfrey Ingram (2:06).
Ladouceur got back into the act with 9:55 remaining in the half, taking a crossing pass from Zoran Karic and punching it by Storm goalie David Brcic, who has started all but one game over veteran Slobo Ilijevski. Passing up the shot in favor of an assist indicates Karic has matured since last year, when earned a reputation for being somewhat selfish.
Ladouceur is glad to be back, and he’s more relaxed after establishing himself in the business world.
“I had a lot of fun doing what I was doing,” he said. “Coming back now is just an added boost. Before I was concerned about the future. Now I think I’m pretty much set.”
George Fernandez closed the first-half scoring, taking a pass from Steve Zungul just inside the redline and drilling a low shot by Brcic. St. Louis made it’s second and final run early in the third quarter when defender Emil Dragicevic (12:46) and midfielder Thompson Usiyan (11:12) scored.
“We’ve got good players, but inexperience cost us the game,” Storm Coach Don Popovic said. “We still have some guys who have never played indoors.”
Socker Notes
Socker midfielder Waad Hirmez appeared on the radio Thursday with Dennis McKnight, a center/guard for the Chargers, to promote a holiday season food drive. McKnight was giving Hirmez a bad time about the pictures Hirmez brought to autograph, which were black and white. McKnight’s were color. So Hirmez shot back: “Show me how many championship rings you have.” He has you there, Dennis. . . . Forward Damir Haramina (thigh) and midfielder Ben Collins (thigh) did not suit up Friday and are not expected to play tonight against Tacoma. . . . The Sockers were just 5-9 last season in second games of a back-to-back series. “I don’t think we have enough players who can suck it up and play hard for the second game,” defender Kevin Crow said. “You should be able to suck it up for one game.” . . . Midfielder Branko Segota would have had four goals in Sunday’s 6-2 victory over Dallas if he had been successful on a third-quarter shootout. The Sockers are now 0-2 in shootouts this season.