Mood Good, Situation Bad for the Blast
He was in a good mood.
He probably shouldn’t have been.
Kenny Cooper, coach of the Baltimore Blast, arrived at Tuesday’s practice whistling. He bid a cheerful hello to a few spectators and walked briskly onto the field to address his team.
What gives? The Blast trails the Sockers, 3-1, entering Game 5 of the MISL championship series at 7:35 tonight in the San Diego Sports Arena, and Cooper is one loss away from an 0-4 championship-series record against both the Sockers and his former coach, Ron Newman.
But it seems Cooper got a lift when his wife called Tuesday morning to gave him a pep talk. She reminded him that nothing has ever come easily for him. He is used to situations such as this.
“I’m 44,” said Cooper, originally from England. “All my life has been a battle. Why should this be any different? I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and we’ve got some players who weren’t born with silver spoons in their mouths. Why should we feel sorry for ourselves? It wasn’t our plan to be in this position, but life is full of twists and turns.”
Perhaps the biggest twist this year is that the Sockers finished the regular season two games under .500 and Baltimore had a record of 32-20, best in the MISL. A few weeks later, the Sockers have hit the Blast in the jaw three times in a row and are lining up for the knockout punch.
So far, this series has been very similar to last year’s, when the Sockers took a 3-1 lead and then lost Game 5 in San Diego and had to travel back to Baltimore. They were routed, 7-0, in Game 6 and hung on to win Game 7, 6-5.
Partially because they haven’t won a championship in San Diego since 1986, and partially because they are tired of plane rides and hotels, the Sockers would very much like the season to be a done deal by the time the 11 o’clock news fires up tonight.
“We just absolutely don’t want to go back to Baltimore,” defender Kevin Crow said. “It’s a long season. We just don’t want to do all that traveling. There’s a lot of incentive for us to win it (tonight).”
Everything points toward it happening. The Sockers have momentum, three consecutive victories and a clean bill of health, none of which can be said about the Blast.
Baltimore’s latest misfortune was the loss of defender Tim Wittman, who suffered a cartilage tear in his right knee during Monday’s game and will miss the remainder of the series. Wittman joins defender Mike Reynolds, who has missed all four games with a right foot sprain.
Along with injuries, the Blast has also been slowed by penalties, accumulating 28 minutes in the box compared to 14 by the Sockers. Baltimore has also spent a lot of time creating nice chances and then pounding the ball off the goal posts instead of into the net.
One bright spot is that Blast midfielder Billy Ronson was back in practice Tuesday after missing Monday’s game with a stomach virus. He said he will play tonight.
Explaining the Sockers’ dramatic turnaround isn’t easy. Getting Wright back from Cleveland in the Zoran Karic trade has certainly helped. But maybe, what had a bigger impact on the players, was continually hearing that they didn’t measure up to the Sockers of the past.
“We seem to always get insulted,” Newman said. “It shakes us up to be committed and prove people wrong.”
The person with perhaps the most unique perspective on this series is Blast midfielder Paul Dougherty, who played for the Sockers the past three seasons before Baltimore claimed him in last summer’s free agent draft.
He is still a crowd favorite in San Diego and doesn’t hear boos even when he commits fouls, which he has done quite frequently. The support is all well and good, but it’s a little hard to enjoy when his team is sinking quickly.
“I think we’re disappointed because we haven’t had a chance to get out in front and enjoy the luxury of a lead,” he said. “For four days now people haven’t been in the greatest of moods. They’ve been optimistic, but they haven’t been in great spirits.”
Spirit is appropriately high among the Sockers. Newman is trying to prevent it from getting too high.
“All I’m concerned with right now is keeping our feet on the ground,” he said. “We’ve just got to take that attitude that nothing is certain until it’s done.”
That much they learned last season.
Series Notes
Coach Kenny Cooper said Scott Manning will be back in goal tonight for the Blast. Manning, who has a 5-2 playoff-record and a 3.01 goals-against average, was given a rest Monday when Scoop Stanisic started his second game in the playoffs. Newman said he hasn’t decided whether he will go with Victor Nogueira (3-3, 2.66 GAA) or Zoltan Toth (7-1, 2.39 GAA). It is Nogueira’s turn in the rotation, but Toth was outstanding in Monday’s game and has been steady throughout the playoffs. Starting Toth would allow Newman to use him again in Game 7 if necessary.