Zodiac Suffers Through a Rusty Return
Three weeks was apparently too long of a layoff for the Zodiac, who appeared listless in a 2-1 A-League soccer loss to Staten Island Friday night before an announced crowd of 593 at UC Irvine’s Anteater Field.
It didn’t help that the Zodiac played a man down for the last 50 minutes and without leading scorer Eddie Soto, who had the flu and didn’t suit up.
“I could tell before the game that it was going to be one of those games,” Zodiac Coach Mike Gartlan said. “We just weren’t sharp offensively or defensively. The layoff was hard for us. We were on a roll. When you take that kind of time off, it just doesn’t work.”
The Zodiac’s loss and San Diego’s victory over California Friday moves San Diego to within a point of first place Orange County (11-7) in the Pacific Division. Before Friday night, the Zodiac was 5-0 against teams outside the Pacific Division.
Staten Island (8-7) opened the scoring in the 18th minute when Kevin Sloan tapped in a beautiful cross from John Ball. The Zodiac tied it in the 38th minute on a diving Tayt Ianni header off a long cross from Orlando Perez. Ianni split two defenders and beat Staten Island goalkeeper Peter Pappas in the upper left side of the goal.
But two minutes later, the Zodiac’s momentum was killed when midfielder Mike Matson was called for a red card for tackling from behind as Staten Island made an offensive charge.
Gartlan had a hard time believing Matson’s tackle deserved a red card.
“It’s a disgrace,” Gartlan said. “They ruin good games. They were out of control tonight. I don’t know if that [Matson’s red card] even deserved a foul. They had people sliding in from behind and there were no calls.”
Orange County had won three of four games playing a man down, but it didn’t handle the disadvantage well Friday. Staten Island scored the tiebreaking goal in the 61st minute. Ball beat two defenders and dumped the ball to a wide-open Marvin Oliver, who easily beat Zodiac goalkeeper Mike Littman.
“What can you do when you’re facing a two on one as a keeper?” Gartlan said. “We got caught in transition a lot, but when you’re a man down, that’s going to happen. It’s not as if we haven’t dealt with that before. They just caught us on a bad night.”
