Stars Keep the Sockers’ Party On Ice

There will be no celebration of a playoff berth for the Sockers. Not yet.

The Tacoma Stars and the Sockers’ road jinx took care of that Thursday night at the Tacoma Dome before 5,097 fans. Tacoma won, 3-1, to keep the corks in the bottle.

The Sockers (22-26) needed to win this one to eliminate the Stars, clinch a berth in the Major Indoor Soccer League Western Division playoffs and move a game ahead of St. Louis into second place.

Instead, they dropped their 19th of 25 road games, and their sixth in the past seven. And the magic number to close out the Stars remained at two. Tacoma has three games remaining, the Sockers four.

Socker Coach Ron Newman was mystified about his team’s ineptness on the road.

“That’s probably the worst game we’ve played in four games,” Newman said. “But I thought Tacoma played well tonight. That’s the best I’ve seen them play all season.

“I guess it was because they are back on their heels, their last desperate attempt.”

How desperate it is will be better known after tonight, when the Western Division-leading Dallas Sidekicks will be at the San Diego Sports Arena for a key game.

Tacoma’s second goal, which gave the Stars a 2-0 lead 1:50 into the third quarter, caught the Sockers napping. And, fittingly, it was the game-winner.

The Stars’ Kia, on right wing, fired hard off the near boards to Mark Kerlin, standing unmarked in the penalty area. Kerlin had an easy goal as goalie Victor Nogueira could only watch.

“It just ran right to his feet,” Newman said. “We had a couple like that, but they beat us to the ball. So it’s a matter of who gets there first and whether you’re in the right place at the right time. I’d like to think we could have been there.”

Moments later, defender Cacho had to clear one off the goal-line just as Tacoma’s Brian Schmetzer was set to tap it in.

The Sockers finally scored 9:36 into the third quarter. Defender George Fernandez hit a low drive from about 50 feet, and goalie Cris Vaccaro froze and watched it fly inside the left post.

But Tacoma struck back at 10:28 for a 3-1 lead on an artistic goal. Vaccaro hit a streaking Andy Schmetzer, who was a half step ahead of defender Kevin Crow, and Schmetzer volleyed a high drive on the run.

“I certainly don’t think we deserved to win it,” said Newman. “But we were in it with a chance right up to that third goal. We didn’t have as many chances as we did (against Tacoma) before.”

Tacoma came out strong, getting a goal by Joe Waters at 1:41 and two near misses by the seven-minute mark. Waters’ goal, from 35 feet out on top, was drilled low and inside the left post. Pato Margetic, off a corner kick, set it up.

Newman was upset by the first goal.

“We didn’t get any sort of breaks early on that could have turned the game around,” he said. “We couldn’t really break down their defense. I was very upset by that first goal. At that stage of the game--we were fast asleep as usual.”

Just a few minutes later, Nogueira had to come out to snuff a Margetic breakaway, and in the seventh minute, Margetic blew an eight-foot shot toward an open net, pulling it off the near boards.

Afterward, the Sockers applied pressure and Vaccaro had to make two nice saves--on forward Wes Wade in front and Crow from on top.

San Diego outshot Tacoma 8-2 in the first quarter, and had the best chances in the second quarter, with midfielder Paul Wright firing just high from the box and Arturo Velazco just wide of the far post at the seven-minute mark.

Socker Notes

Former Tacoma Coach Alan Hinton attended his first game since being fired last Dec. 8. . . . The attendance was adversely affected by the appearance of the world-champion Oakland A’s Thursday in a game against their Tacoma farm club, the Tigers.