Round 4 Goes to Sockers : Soccer: Tempers heat up as the Sockers pick up 6-3 victory against Blast to take 3-1 series lead.

The Sockers are fighting with their opponent during this semifinal series, they’re fighting with themselves, and the coach is fighting with the other guys’ vice president.

Oh, and guess what? They’re winning. They won their second in a row against the Blast, 6-3, on Thursday in front of 4,458 at the Arena.

That gives them a commanding 3-1 lead in the series. The Sockers can move into the championship series for a fifth consecutive year by defeating the Blast in Game 5 in Baltimore on Saturday at 4:05 p.m. (live on the San Diego Cable Sports Network).

If Game 4 was a precursor, expect some fisticuffs.

The Blast came out feet first at the Sockers. They were whistled for seven two-minute penalties, and the Sockers scored on their first three power plays (on goals from Paul Wright, Thompson Usiyan and Wright again).

The Blast also handicapped themselves toward the end of the second quarter when Emil Dragicevic and Doug Neely picked up third fouls. Because four fouls in a half equal a two-minute penalty, Coach Kenny Cooper chose to sit both on the bench. That meant the 11 remaining Blast players had to work that much harder.

The Sockers determined that the Blast’s physical play was intentional after reading in the morning newspaper a comment attributed to Cooper, who said he wouldn’t be surprised if a bench-clearing brawl broke out before the series ended.

“It’s not a good thing to say that your team has to beat up on us physically in order to have a chance at winning,” Socker goalie Victor Nogueira said.

Cooper said he didn’t mean to imply that.

“The game turned physical,” Cooper said. “But that wasn’t our game plan. I’ve went up against them too many times to know you can’t beat them like that.”

The Sockers weren’t buying it.

“Their game plan was to try to intimidate us,” Socker defender Terry Woodberry said. “And of course it hurt them in the end.”

Woodberry was involved in an altercation himself--with teammate Paul Dougherty. The two had to be separated by Nogueira midway through the third quarter. The Sockers led 3-1 at that point.

“I just thought the intensity of some of our players dropped off,” Dougherty said. “I don’t like to see that and I didn’t think it was the time for that.”

At first, Woodberry termed the argument “a communication problem.” After being told Dougherty’s version, Woodberry’s expression turned sour.

“I guess we see things differently, then,” he said, obviously annoyed. “But that’s good. That gets me fired up. It gets my blood boiling.”

Others had already reached the boiling point.

Coach Ron Newman got into a heated argument with Blast vice president Drew Forrester as the two walked from the field. Before the game Forrester joked with Newman that the Sockers should let the Blast win to help with the gate receipts on Saturday. Afterward, as both headed through the Arena’s labyrinth to their locker rooms, Newman told Forrester, “There, you have your fifth game.”

After a couple shoves, Newman told Forrester, “If you’re going to be a vice president, you should start acting like one.”

“And you should start acting like a head coach,” Forrester replied.

As has been the case in the past, the Sockers proved there is a correlation between their tempers and their game tempo.

“We played our best game we’ve played in over six weeks,” defender Kevin Crow said.

Five Sockers scored. Beside the two mentioned, Dougherty, Jacques Ladouceur and Crow got into the act.

That the Sockers spread around the scoring was a sign that their passing is becoming much more a part of their game than it was as they concluded the regular season by losing five of seven. Perhaps the best pass was one from Dougherty from deep in the midfield that looped to Ladouceur in the penalty area. Ladouceur, with his back to the goal, let it flick off his forehead, over onrushing goalie Cris Vaccaro, and into the net.

Now that season-ending swoon is seen as a liability-turned-asset.

“The good thing about not playing so well at the end of the season,” Nogueira said, “is that we had to start all over again. Our momentum is building and building. We’re getting better and better. We made some mistakes, and now we’re learning from them. We toughened up on defense and now we’re getting tighter and tighter in the back. The midfielders and forwards, everyone, they’re hustling back, and it’s great.”

While everyone else pointed at Nogueira to explain the Sockers’ stinginess, Nogueira laid credit elsewhere.

“My defenders just did incredibly well,” he said. “I didn’t play nearly as well as my defense.”

Cooper rolled his eyes when he heard that.

“Victor Nogueira was the difference tonight,” he said. “I know. I’m a former goalie, and Victor turned in a world-class effort.”

Nogueira finished with 23 saves, including eight in each of the final two quarters. At one point midway through the final quarter Nogueira came through to stop three point-blank shots from Blast forward Dominic Mobilio.