Sockers Making It a Runaway : Soccer: They beat St. Louis, 6-3, for their 11th consecutive victory.

The incredible shrinking Major Soccer League has withered to one team: the Sockers.

The Sockers won their 11th consecutive game, 6-3, over the St. Louis Storm in front of 10,742 at the Arena on Sunday, taking what already was a one-team race to even more ridiculous heights.

With 15 games remaining on their schedule, the Sockers (19-6) have a six-game lead over second-place Wichita (13-12) and Dallas (15-14).

Ridiculous? Coach Ron Newman is worrying that his team hasn’t suffered enough injuries this year.

Said Newman: “Of course, injuries can be a real menace to you during the season, but the upside is the players you’re using as replacements are gaining valuable playing time. So when the playoffs roll around and you suffer two or three injuries, you have someone ready to fill in.”

But without any significant injuries this season, and with no one playing poorly enough to lose his spot on the 14-man roster, Newman decided he couldn’t wait any longer. He played Mirko Castillo at forward and left midfielder Alex Khapsalis at home.

“I can’t keep playing the same team,” Newman said. “I have to give some of these other guys playing time. So I made a change tonight even though it wasn’t warranted.”

As has often been the case during the streak, it was the right button to push. Castillo came through with two assists.

“He didn’t let us down, that’s for sure,” Newman said.

The Sockers had to overcome a 3-0 advantage the Storm had built itself over the first 25 minutes. The Sockers did so by holding the Storm at bay from that point on and scoring the game’s last six goals.

“I was expecting them to come in fatigued and slow,” Newman said of the Storm, who had to fly from Tacoma to St. Louis earlier in the day after losing an overtime game Saturday night to the Stars. “I thought we would open sharp and take it to them. But we were very, very sloppy.”

The Storm took advantage of the Sockers’ poor play with goals from Preki, Kevin Hundelt and Ted Eck.

And it appeared they would ride their momentum into halftime, but with 26 seconds showing on the second-quarter clock, Socker midfielder Paul Dougherty converted a pass from defender David Banks and beat goalie Slobo Ilijevski to make it 3-1.

Newman said that acted like a pin in the back of a voodoo doll.

“It broke the drought for us and got them doubting themselves,” he said. “We were pretty confident in the locker room that we were going to come back and win this game. All the boys, especially Ben Collins, were adamant that we would come back and win.”

The players were more convinced than the coach, who worried about which team would score the all-important first goal of the half.

Neither team could find the net for the half’s first eight minutes, but the Sockers cut the deficit to one at 8:39 of the third quarter when forward Paul Wright scored his 36th goal of the season.

Wright leads the league in goals scored. He is one ahead of Wichita’s Dale Ervine and is the first Socker to challenge for the MSL goal-scoring title since Branko Segota finished second in 1987-88.

Wright, who also had an assist, has scored 31 goals and set up 10 others in the past 18 games.

Four other Sockers scored the final four goals.

Kevin Crow tied it with 2 1/2 minutes remaining in the third quarter by nicking a shot of Castillo’s just enough to cause it to change directions and elude the grasp of Ilijevski.

Ben Collins’ goal 15 seconds into the final quarter gave the Sockers their first lead of the game, then Terry Woodberry and Tim Wittman drove in the final two nails.

The question has become, how long can this winning streak continue? To 13, which would tie the club’s all-time longest string?

“We’re not even talking about it,” Newman said.

The Sockers longest streak of all time came during the the 1985-86 season. It apparently went unnoticed, however. The MSL media guide lists an 11-game streak by the New York Arrows in 1979-80 as the second longest in MSL history.

Guess what? It’s wrong.

“Par for the course,” said Newman, who then got inquisitive. “What’s the longest streak listed?”

It seems the New York Arrows won 19 in a row the following year.

“Well you can’t count that,” Newman said. “1981--it was a bloody bush league then.”