Galaxy All Tied Up Again
Trailing by a goal after only four minutes and being outplayed by the Dallas Burn for the first half hour, the Galaxy fought its way back to earn a 1-1 tie on Carlos Ruiz’s second goal of the season Saturday in front 9,098 at Dragon Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Southlake.
Two games into what will be an eight-game spell on the road, Los Angeles, the defending Major League Soccer champion, has yet to be beaten, a fact quickly pointed out by Coach Sigi Schmid.
“The one plus for us is that we’re two games into the season and we haven’t recorded a loss,” Schmid said. “Everything has been against us -- the fans, the weather and the fields. It shows the character of this team that we’ve been able to come away with two ties.”
But for the play of goalkeeper Kevin Hartman, the goals of Ruiz and fair share of good fortune, the Galaxy, which tied the Crew, 1-1, in its opener at Columbus, Ohio, last Saturday, might easily be 0-2 rather than 0-0-2.
Once again, it yielded the first goal, this time when the Burn scored in the fourth minute. Bobby Rhine made a run down the left wing and crossed the ball to Jason Kreis, who played it back for Ronnie O’Brien to slam into the roof of the Galaxy net from long range.
Later, Dallas defender Steve Morrow powered a header that rattled the Los Angeles crossbar, and Hartman was also forced into several saves as the Burn outshot the Galaxy, 14-12.
It was Hartman’s long clearance kick that led to the Galaxy goal as Ruiz collected the ball and somehow wiggled his way past three defenders before beating Burn goalkeeper D. J. Countess with a low shot just inside the left post to tie the score in the 30th minute.
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In other MLS games: Reserve forward Jeff Cunningham knocked in a crossing pass from Frankie Hejduk in the closing minute of regulation and Columbus (1-0-1) spoiled the debut of new MetroStars’ Coach Bob Bradley with a 1-0 victory over New York/New Jersey (0-1-0) in front of 23,786 at East Rutherford.... Chris Brown scored on a rebound of Josh Wolff’s miss less than 90 seconds into overtime, giving the Kansas City Wizards (1-0-0) a 3-2 win over Washington D.C. United (0-1-0) in front of 22,403 at Kansas City, Mo.... Rookie Todd Dunivant scored in his debut and Landon Donovan had two assists to lead the San Jose Earthquakes (1-0-0) to a 2-1 victory over the Colorado Rapids (0-1-0) in front of 20,816 at Denver.
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In Women’s United Soccer Assn. games: Maribel Dominguez scored three goals and the Atlanta Beat (2-0-0) set a WUSA record for goals in consecutive games, with a 6-0 victory over the Boston Breakers (1-1-0) in front of 4,672 at Atlanta. Last week Atlanta defeated New York, 5-0, in its opener.... Jacqui Little had two first-half goals, and Mia Hamm scored in the second half to lead the Washington Freedom (2-0-0) to a 3-1 victory over the New York Power (0-2-0) in front of 7,268 at Washington.
