Sockers Earn the Last Laugh on Title Story : Soccer: With 5-1 victory over Kansas City, the Sockers finally earn the Western Division championship of the MSL.

Those nutty Sockers--they proclaim themselves Western Division champions, then take heat for being premature as they go on to lose two straight and allow second-place St. Louis to come within a half-game.

Then Friday night they smugly take a 5-1 victory over the Kansas City Comets, and, along with it, claim the title they said they already had a week earlier.

“I’m glad it didn’t go until tomorrow, anyway,” Socker Coach Ron Newman said.

The man most responsible for squelching the suspense was Socker goalie Victor Nogueira, who came within 1 minute 41 seconds of earning his ninth career shutout and third this season.

No Major Soccer League goalie ever has earned three shutouts in one season. Carl Valentine made sure Nogueira would not change that.

Nogueira did tie a league record by earning his 30th victory this season. Only Alan Mayer previously had won as many in one season. He did it as a Socker in 1982-83.

Nogueira has a chance to go Mayer one better tonight as the Sockers (33-18) play the Dallas Sidekicks (5:35, XTRA radio, Ch. 51 TV).

“I’ll talk to him and see if he wants to go for 31,” Newman said as if there was some doubt.

No need. Nogueira wants to.

“Obviously, I would like to,” Nogueira said. “It’s always difficult to try and break a record, and to do it in Dallas would be great.”

But Nogueira has some reservations. He knows that if No. 31 is to come that his teammates also must crave a victory. And with the Sockers already having won home-field advantage through the playoffs, there might be a letdown.

Nogueira was able to rationalize his fears away.

“I think everybody wants to play,” he said, “because we don’t want to lose our last game before we go into the playoffs.”

After tonight’s finale in Dallas, the Sockers will have 12 days to sit around and get rusty.

They will not play again until April 18 when they open the divisional finals at the Sports Arena--where 8,128 turned out for Friday’s home finale--against the winner of the St. Louis Storm-Tacoma Stars three-game series.

The layoff could prove detrimental as it did to the Dallas Sidekicks last season. Dallas, which waited more than two weeks for the Sockers to emerge from the quarterfinals, lost in six games.

How the Sockers will while the time is anybody’s guess.

“That’s for Coach Newman to decide,” said midfielder Paul Dougherty.

Dougherty was instrumental in Friday’s victory. He scored the first two goals, both after running onto rebounds of errant shots by Ben Collins and hitting them by Comet goalie Jim Gorsek.

Collins finally found his target five minutes into the second half after working a give-and-go with Branko Segota. Segota left a perfect feed for Collins at the top of the penalty area, and Collins hit it by the charging Gorsek.

Waad Hirmez scored the Sockers’ final goal with five minutes left off a pass from Segota.

MSL Notes

The Sockers, who began selling tickets to their first playoff game Friday, are now selling playoff tickets for the first two games of the Western Division finals to be played Thursday, April 18, and Saturday, April 20. . . . Wes Wade was handed a plaque by owner Ron Fowler at halftime. For the second year in a row, Wade was voted the Jolly Rancher Fans’ Favorite Player of the Year. . . . Referee Esse Baharmast had to go fetch the Comets from the locker room in order to start the second half. . . . This note is from the Comets’ game day press release: “The Comets will be without defender Kim Roentved, who is out indefinitely with an inflammation of the pelvis.” . . . The largest MSL crowd this season, 15,234, showed up at the St. Louis Arena to watch the Storm edge Tacoma, 7-6. In other games, Wichita (20-31) went to overtime against Cleveland before winning, 7-6, and remaining a game behind Baltimore in the East for that division’s last playoff spot. Baltimore (21-30) defeated Dallas, 9-4. Wichita will go to the playoffs if it gets by St. Louis on Sunday and if the Blast lose tonight at Cleveland.