Sidekicks Need Victory Against Sockers in Dallas : Soccer: Sockers have 2-0 lead in MSL championship series. A third defeat would put Sidekicks’ backs to the wall.

It’s a best-of-seven series, but the winner of the Major Soccer League championship might be determined tonight in Game 3.

The Sockers lead two games to none.

“It’s a very important game,” Socker forward Thompson Usiyan said. “If we win the third game, it’s all wrapped up. It would be very tough for Dallas to win four straight.”

Dallas Coach Gordon Jago concurred.

“We need to win to keep the series alive,” he said. “Once you get three, you know you have four games to win one. That would be very much a positive for San Diego. We can’t lose if we want to make this a competitive series.”

Several factors make the situation even more precarious for the Sidekicks:

- Jago said he plans to stick with the inexperienced Hank Henry in goal despite sub-par performances in the first two games and despite a strained left hip that Henry suffered late in Game 2. Henry, who is playing because of a knee injury to regular Joe Papaleo, has an 0-4 record and a 7.58 goals-against average against the Sockers this season.

- If the injury keeps Henry off the field, 13-year veteran Scott Manning, whose reactions are as slow as Henry’s anticipatory skills, will get the start.

- In the back of their minds the Sidekicks will remember how the Sockers came back from a 4-1 deficit in Game 2 to tie the game, then tied it twice more before finally taking the lead for good 26 seconds into the fourth quarter. Losing three leads in one game can have a demoralizing effect.

- Dallas will be nursing several injuries. Besides Henry’s strained hip, leading scorer David Doyle is probable with a pulled right groin, defender Wes McLeod is probable with a bruised left heel, and Jan Goossens is suffering from tendinitis in his left Achilles. Goossens, who missed Game 2, is expected to play.

But all is not dismal for the Sidekicks. They compiled a 16-4 record at Reunion Arena, the best home mark in the MSL. They also swept the Sockers in three games here.

“We as a team feel OK,” Jago said. “We battled the Sockers in their own building where our record is disgraceful, anyway (3-30). And we played a lot better in the second game--that was encouraging.”

Added Socker defender Terry Woodberry: “They’re going to be confident about playing at home and having the home crowd behind them.”

Woodberry should know. He spent the first three years of his career with the Sidekicks before being cast aside only days before the 1991-92 season.

The salary cap was the official explanation, but Woodberry knows otherwise. He didn’t like Tatu, the MSL’s fourth all-time leading scorer, and Tatu didn’t care for Woodberry. Someone had to go, and it wasn’t going to be the guy with more than 400 career goals.

So Woodberry, who signed with the Sockers only hours before the season began, is making more than a homecoming. He’s trying to make a point: There are other characteristics possessed by a winner besides scoring goals.

In his first season with the Sockers, Woodberry scored 21, one shy of what he had with the Sidekicks a year earlier. But he contributed in less noticeable ways. With one of the most lethal left-footed shots in the league, he commanded attention and thus gave Paul Wright and some of the Sockers’ other predominantly right-footed shooters more room with which to work on the other side of the field.

“The chemistry on this team was right from the start,” Woodberry said. “I just clicked with these guys right away. It’s a good group, which was a big switch for someone who last year got along with certain players and didn’t get along with certain other players. That tends not to create good chemistry.”

Woodberry found it so comfortable with his new teammates that he played his first game as a Socker the same day he signed with the team. He didn’t block any shots or score any points in that one, a 7-2 loss to the Sidekicks, but after the game he knew he had a significant role on the team.

“I had a feeling I would be playing an important part,” Woodberry said. “Because I know my abilities. I know I have good speed and good skills. And I felt I wasn’t used properly in Dallas.”

Now he’s back in Dallas, in front of family, friends, and perhaps most importantly, in front of the coach who cut him only six months ago.

“This feels great,” Woodberry said. “I couldn’t ask for more. This is what I really wanted--to come back to Dallas and show them I could be of good use.”