Sockers Come Through at Wright Time
It happened so quickly.
Bing, bang, boom, and the Sockers were in first place.
Forward Paul Wright slipped into the penalty area, midfielder Brian Quinn sent him the ball with an artful pass and Wright knocked it into the goal. That gave the Sockers a 5-4 overtime victory over St. Louis (16-12) Friday night at the San Diego Sports Arena and put them a half game ahead of the Storm atop the Western Division of the MSL.
The game, witnessed by 6,804, put Sockers Coach Ron Newman in boisterous spirits.
“That was a bloody hell of a game, that bugger. Wasn’t it?” he said, clapping his hands as he entered the interview room. “Nobody wanted to lose that one.”
And what a finish. It was Wright’s second goal and third point of the game. It came 1:34 into overtime.
“I was standing in front of the goal, and I was just hoping (Quinn) saw me,” Wright said. “You know, Brian’s got great vision.”
Good thing. It made up for his tired feet. He had a game he probably would like to have forgotten before he even cracked his first post-game Guinness Stout.
“Yeah,” he said. “When you have the kind of game like I had, you’re bound to have one good pass through the law of averages. I just didn’t have a good game.”
But his teammates did. The Sockers (16-11) came back to tie three times. The third came midway through the fourth quarter on indoor soccer’s equivalent to a volleyball dink.
Socker midfielder Jim Gabarra sent a scorching shot off the right post and ran down the rebound. He then shot again.
And that’s when defender Kevin Crow got involved, sticking his foot in the path of the ball and sending it past goalie Zoltan Toth, who played for the Sockers the past six seasons. After the ball hit the net, Crow turned and directed a few words at his former teammate.
“I just kind of smirked,” he said. “Just good natured.”
What about that game-winner?
“We were all over them for 45 seconds,” Crow said. “So you hope justice prevails.”
St. Louis led, 3-2, at halftime after taking a 2-0 lead in the first quarter on goals by forwards Daniel Donigan and Godfrey Ingram. Donigan’s shot struck from 25 feet, Ingram’s 40.
The Sockers then made good on a power play when midfielder Paul Dougherty struck from the right side of the penalty area late in the first quarter. Wright tied it 16 seconds into the second quarter on a 50-footer that sailed above Toth, who had dropped to his knees. Ingram’s second goal put a wrap to the first-half scoring and gave the Storm their one-goal halftime edge.
The Sockers tied it again 3:06 into the third quarter when Dougherty took a pass off the boards from David Banks and hit a dribbler into an open goal. Donigan put the Storm on top again with his second goal of the game and his seventh against the Sockers this season. His shot, taken from 15 feet out, went through the legs of defender Glenn Carbonara.
The two teams will go at it again next Friday in St. Louis. This appears to be a preview of the playoffs. The Storm and the Sockers have risen to the top in the West. The Sockers have defeated them three times in five meetings.
“I think we like to get at each other,” Newman said. “I think they’re friendly to each other, but there’s a professional rivalry between the two of them. That was playoff tempo.”
Socker Notes
Sports Illustrated reporter Richard Hoffer spent more than two hours Friday interviewing Socker midfielder Waad Hirmez, a native of Baghdad, Iraq. A story is scheduled for next week’s edition. Hirmez moved to the United States in 1979 when he was 17 . . . Socker forward Wes Wade had to be helped off the field in the third quarter after he smashed his knee into the boards. Wade later returned for a shift in the fourth quarter and said after the game his knee was fine . . . The Sockers outshot St. Louis, 42-13.
