Storm Puts a Dark Cloud Over Sockers

There were the three goals by Ben Collins. There was the tying goal from Waad Hirmez that came with two seconds left in regulation. And there was Glenn Carbonara’s goal two minutes into the fourth quarter that gave the Sockers their third lead of the game.

But the Sockers wasted these performances when St. Louis scored on a set play 33 seconds into overtime for a 7-6 victory in front of a home-opener crowd of 10,277 at the Sports Arena.

On the set play, Daryl Doran took the free kick just above the right corner of the penalty area and sent a pass to Preki in the middle of the arc. Preki one-timed it into the upper-left corner.

But there was some controversy as to whether St. Louis should have been awarded the free kick.

Doran and Socker defender Kevin Crow were tussling just outside the penalty area when Doran lost control of the ball.

So what exactly happened? Let’s ask Crow.

“Ask Esse,” Crow said tersely, referring to referee Esse Baharmast.

Crow later relented.

“Doran just fell down and they called a foul,” he said. “He just fell down. He lost control of the ball and really had no other option than to go down and go for a foul call. It was good acting.”

“Good acting,” Doran wondered aloud. “Well, I don’t know about that. We were fighting in the corner and he could have been called either way. I went to kick the ball and my shoulder hit him, but he kind of hit me, too. It could have gone either way, but this time, the luck was kind of going for us.’

Sockers Coach Ron Newman didn’t see it as a matter of luck.

“It turned out to be a great game,” he said. “It had everything you wanted, a lot of excitement, and then a call like that takes it away from you.

“It’s heartbreaking when that happens to you in your home opener.”

But the Sockers actually had a call go there way late in regulation when Daniel Donigan was called for a dangerous play as he slid into Wes Wade, the sixth attacker, who was in his goal box grabbing a loose ball.

It appeared the Sockers wouldn’t convert on the power play when, with some five seconds left, Doran picked up a loose ball in his end and kicked it high in the air in attempt to expire the clock.

But Doran’s kick hit the scoreboard, and Major Soccer League rules dictate that the other team gets a direct free kick on the red line when that happens. So with three seconds remaining, Hirmez lined up to take the kick. His shot deflected off the two-man wall and into the goal.

Hirmez’s goal was the last of six in the quarter and was his 116th as a Socker, which puts at No. 6 on the Sockers’ all-time goal scoring list.

Donigan scored two fourth-quarter goals to give him four on the night. His first put the Storm up 5-4 midway through the quarter and his second made it 6-4 with less than three minutes to go.

Thirty-five seconds later, however, Paul Wright scored off a Joe Montana-like crossing pass from Keder to make it 5-4 and set up Hirmez’s tying goal two minutes later.

Donigan’s other two goals came in the third quarter. They were sandwiched around Collins’ third goal, which came seven minutes into the quarter and put the Sockers up 3-2.

In the first half, St. Louis scored first when Godfrey Ingram, with his back to the goal, turned and one-touched a pass from Preki, scooting it between the legs of onrushing goalie Victor Nogueira.

Then Collins scored his first goal of the night when he found that extra foot of goal on the right side by taking a pass from Hirmez and banking it off the inside of the right post and behind goalie Slobo Ilijevski.

The league enlarged the goals by one foot on both sides and another foot on top before the season.

It must have looked even bigger to Collins, who fired from the top of the arc, 34 feet from the goal. St. Louis was playing a man short at the time and having trouble arranging its zone defense.

Collins’ second goal was indirectly because of a St. Louis foul. Greg Muhr, the Storm’s 1990 first-round draft pick, was called for obstructing Rod Castro at the top corner of the penalty box. Wes Wade took the direct free kick. It was wide, but Hirmez picked up the rebound, and sent it into the goal box where Collins redirected it to the right of Ilijevski.

Socker Notes

Ben Collins’ first hat trick came his rookie season, 1984-85, with the Minnesota Strikers when he scored three times in the fourth quarter of a 6-4 vitory over the Chicago Sting. . . . Since the Sockers began unfurling championship banners at home openers, they have sold out only once, in 1986. Their smallest opening-night crowd since they began their string of titles was 1982 whe 8,487 showed up for the Sockers first game in the then Major Indoor Soccer League. They previously played in the North American Soccer league, now defunct. Last year, 11,153 were on hand for opening night.