Sockers Finish Fast, Top Blast : MSL: Six-goal fourth quarter gives San Diego a 10-7 victory. Wright takes MSL scoring lead with two goals and an assist.

His team is nine-time defending Major Soccer League champion, leads the league by 5 1/2 games this season and is winner in 16 of its past 19 games, but Ron Newman isn’t spoiled.

The Sockers coach said he still appreciates a ragged game turned refined or a spirited rally, and he got both Saturday in a 10-7 victory over Baltimore.

“It was one of those games that you feel just great about winning,” Newman said after the Sockers overcame a three-goal deficit in front of 10,060 at the Baltimore Arena. “Our lads hung in there the entire game and just kept coming back.”

Behind a six-goal fourth quarter--their third six-goal quarter of the season--the Sockers (24-9) bounced Baltimore higher than a congressman’s check.

The Sockers trailed 5-2 at halftime and 6-4 after three quarters, but they finally drew even early in the final quarter.

“The game was a little sloppy on both ends of the field,” Newman said, “but we were able to come up with some nice individual goals, like (Paul Wright’s) goal that finally brought us even.”

After Thompson Usiyan scored off a soft pass from Jacques Ladouceur to bring the Sockers to within one, 6-5, Wright, who vaulted into the MSL scoring lead, took over. Paul Dougherty passed to Wright on the right wing, and Wright then faked defender Rusty Troy and beat goaltender Cris Vaccaro with a shot off the left post.

Defensive lapses by Baltimore (16-18) then helped the Sockers to two goals within a 15-second span.

After the Blast failed to clear a shot, Kevin Crow connected from 30 feet to give the Sockers their first lead with 5:00 remaining in the game. Moments later, Vaccaro tried to head a ball out of danger--only to have it bounce to Tim Wittman at midfield. Wittman’s goal, his 20th of the season, gave the Sockers an 8-6 lead.

Billy Ronson scored a sixth-attacker goal for the Blast with 1:59 remaining, but empty-net goals by Terry Woodberry and David Banks sealed the Sockers’ victory, their fifth in six games this season against Baltimore.

Wright, Wittman and Woodberry each had two goals for the Sockers.

Wright, who has scored in 22 of his past 23 games, has 44 goals and 23 assists for the season, and Dougherty, who had a goal and an assist, owns a nine-game scoring streak.

But such offense was absent in the first quarter, when the Sockers were outshot 16-6 and trailed 3-0 before Dougherty played a billiard shot into his team’s first goal. Off a rebound of an Alex Golovnia shot, Dougherty left-footed the ball off two Baltimore players, through teammate Crow’s legs and into the net.

A power-play goal by Wittman made it 3-2, but Baltimore’s Jean Harbor scored back-to-back goals to give the Blast the 5-2 halftime lead.

Ronson and Domenic Mobilio also had two goals apiece for Baltimore.

The Sockers, whose magic number is three to clinch the regular-season title and home-field advantage for the playoffs, play at Cleveland tonight.