Sockers Leave Trouble Behind, Reach Finals

A few thousand pounds rose and flew from the shoulders of Socker Coach Ron Newman Thursday night in Reunion Arena.

It was there that his seven-time champion Sockers made a big leap toward number eight, eliminating the Dallas Sidekicks from the Western Division finals with a 3-1 victory before 7,869.

So what else is new, you ask? Just this. The Sockers were really not supposed to have another go at the Baltimore Blast, their opponent in the championship series starting Tuesday night in Baltimore.

As hard as it might be for the players to admit, this group of Sockers stunk throughout much of the regular season. They lost on the road. They bickered. They finished two games below .500.

Since nobody expects the Sockers to be that bad, Newman felt the heat. October through May was one long restless night. Thursday’s victory provided a splash of relief.

“It’s so hard to keep going all the time,” Newman said. “I’ve worked bloody hard to figure out everything I can. You just hope everything you’ve done is enough.”

For now, it is. The Sockers won the final three games to take this series, 4-2. In doing so, they held the Sidekicks to three goals. To clinch it, they played team soccer, finding the men who were open and working the ball around the carpet as the Sidekicks chased after them.

Unlike the past, the Sockers don’t have that handful of players who break games wide open. When everybody doesn’t contribute, this team has stumbled.

But Thursday, everybody did a little, and midfielder Brian Quinn did a lot. The defenders and goalie Zoltan Toth held Dallas scoreless in the first half. Then, 2:55 into the third quarter, midfielder Branko Segota, who missed Tuesday’s game with bursitis in his left hip, came on for one of his few shifts. He passed off the boards to forward Paul Wright with defender Wes McCleod glued to his back. The ball found Wright alone in the penalty box, and seconds later, it was in the top of the goal.

The Sockers held their 1-0 lead through the third quarter, but Dallas capitalized on a strange power play to tie it 2:08 into the fourth. The Sockers were penalized for too many men on the field. Newman said the referees made a mistake.

Apparently, forward Rod Castro started to run onto the field and decided he wasn’t supposed to make a change. He reversed his steps, and the officials thought he was an extra man, but Newman said the Sockers had just four other field players at the time.

Anyway, Sidekick midfielder Beto took a pass off the boards from defender Doc Lawson 33 seconds into the power play and connected. The crowd was suddenly very loud. And the game was tied.

Thirty seconds later, all that could be heard were a lot of people mumbling into their popcorn. Socker midfielder Waad Hirmez took the ball to midfield and sent it up to Wright, who was open by about the length of the Empire State building. Wright dribbled, took on goalie Krys Sobieski and slipped it through his legs.

“I was going to go around him,” Wright said. “But then at the last minute he stood his ground, so I just put it through his legs. (Hirmez) played a beautiful ball, and I had to finish it.”

It was about then that defender Ralph Black pulled out his crystal ball and saw into the future. He took Segota aside and said something like: “You’re going to come in and score the crucial goal.”

And?

“He just looked at me,” Black said. “I think he probably thought I was crazy.”

Crazy or not, Segota did finish things off, faking out Sobieski and scoring with 23 seconds to play to send the fans toward the exits and the Sidekicks on vacation.

Just before Segota scored, Tatu, the Sidekicks’ scoring magician, took a hack at the ball facing an empty net and sent it over the goal and into the seats. Had he tied it, the outcome might have been different.

“I’m not going to give excuses,” Tatu said. “I had it, and I blew it. No two ways about it.”

But it wasn’t so much that the Sidekicks lost this game, it was that the Sockers burgled it. Nearly every time Dallas made a charge, the defense closed, and Quinn ran down the ball and found a blue-and-gold jersey. He got his only point on an assist to Segota, but his performance was worth a whole lot more than a mark on the statistic sheet.

Not bad for a guy playing on his 30th birthday.

“He’s just playing great,” defender Kevin Crow said. “He can still do that even at his age.”

It should be noted that Dallas played without two of its key players. Defender Richard Chinapoo and forward Steve Kinsey were sidelined with injuries. Still, advancing to the finals after all the Sockers have been through felt pretty nice.

“Above everything,” Quinn said, “there’s a feeling of self-satisfaction. After a tough regular season, it’s nice to be there again and have that opportunity. We’ve listened to other people around the league who don’t want us to win. I’m really satisfied.”