Blast Ends Sockers’ Win Streak : MSL: Baltimore overcomes three two-goal deficits to pull out 8-7 victory.

The Sockers’ early-season winning streak ended at three Saturday as the Baltimore Blast came from behind for an 8-7 victory in front of 7,191 at the Arena.

It was the Blast’s first victory against the Sockers in the teams’ past seven meetings.

The Sockers (3-3) blew a chance to move within a half game of first-place Dallas and Wichita.

What’s worse is that the Sockers allowed three two-goal leads to disintegrate in the first half.

“They were just terrified of us,” Socker Coach Ron Newman said of the Blast’s demeanor in the early going. “We were playing just brilliant soccer. They had to be thinking, ‘What can we do to stop this?’ But we get up 3-1 and we start giving up silly goals.”

The turning point came five minutes before halftime when Baltimore’s Mark Mettrick was called for an intentional handball and the Sockers were awarded a shootout. It was taken by Ben Collins.

“Ben was just unlucky,” Newman said. “He got around the goalie (Cris Vaccaro), but then he had to reach for it and he got a little underneath it and it ended up hitting the bottom of the crossbar.”

The Blast, already playing short handed because of an earlier penalty, were then forced to play two men down. But the Sockers failed to convert during their 25-second two-man advantage, and also failed on the remainder of the power play.

“That did two things,” Newman said. “It prevented us from getting further ahead and it gave them the confidence they needed to catch up.”

The Sockers’ luck further soured when the Blast went on a power play with 1:29 to go in the half. The Sockers got out of the half all right, but seven seconds into the third quarter, Baltimore forward Rod Castro made good on the power play by scoring his first goal of the season to pull the Blast to within one, 5-4.

It was the first of four consecutive goals for the Blast, who were further aided by four goals from Dominic Mobilio.

Socker Notes

First-year player John Kerr scored twice for the Sockers and has a three-game goal-scoring streak. . . . Both Paul Wright (one goal, two assists) and Brian Quinn (one goal, two assists) now have scored in every one of the five games they have played in since joining the Sockers. . . . Jacques Ladouceur had his second consecutive two-assist game and now leads the Sockers with six assists. . . . The Sockers were reduced to 13 players when forward Thompson Usiyan injured a hamstring in the first half. In the second half, they were reduced to 12 players when defender Alex Golovnia went down. “That’s not good for us because we use all our players,” Coach Ron Newman said. “I thought a little bit of fatigue set in at the end.” Neither injury is serious, Newman said.