Knights Grab Playoff Game, Field Advantage From Splash

The postgame quotes were laced with expletives, the sign of disgust Splash players expressed after their 10-4 playoff loss Saturday night to the Sacramento Knights.

“It was a . . . disgrace,” said Rod Castro, who had two goals and one assist. “We (were terrible). We went out thinking we could just walk on the field and win, like we have the last 10 . . . games.”

The Splash had won nine of its last 12 and lost to Sacramento, which had lost six consecutive road games and five of the last seven.

The Splash also lost the home-field advantage in the best-of-three, first-round Continental Indoor Soccer League series, which continues Monday in Sacramento.

“Everybody wanted to be the hero,” Splash Coach George Fernandez said, “and now everyone is the goat.”

The statistics say the Splash should have won the playoff game, but it wasn’t even close in front of 8,665 at The Pond.

--The Splash is 10-1 in home games in which it has out-shot opponents, and it had a 41-30 edge over Sacramento.

--The Splash is 4-0 in home games it trails after three quarters, and it trailed, 5-2.

Now the Splash is down a game against the Knights.

“Everything we did was wrong,” Fernandez said. “We got frustrated and we started going after the refs, we made stupid fouls and we started yelling at each other.”

Sacramento scored three times in the first 9 minutes 3 seconds.

“I think we were kind of shellshocked that that could happen,” Dale Ervine said. “It’s not supposed to happen here.”

The Splash got goals from Ralph Black and when Castro scored two consecutive goals, it was 5-3.

Armando Valdivia made it 6-4 with six minutes to play and the Splash went to a sixth attacker after Gerell Elliott’s third goal made it 7-4.

The Knights scored two more goals against the sixth attacker, and finished the job on Mark Thomas’ third goal at 13:17.

Mike Dowler had 15 saves for Sacramento, and the Splash had four shots hit the post or crossbar.

Sacramento lost its third-leading scorer, Shawn Blakeman, 11:29 into the game. Blakeman was hit with holding and misconduct penalties, and then received a red card for his tirade from the penalty box.