Blast Edge Sockers 5-4
Chad Poarch capped a fourth-quarter comeback by scoring the game-winner with 1:12 remaining, as the Baltimore Blast pulled out their seventh straight win, a 5-4 road victory over the San Diego Sockers. The Sockers (12-5-2, 36 points), who led 3-0 forty minutes into the game, were out-scored 5-1 in the second half to see an eight-match point streak (7-0-1) come to an ignominious end.
The game was a tale of two halves. San Diego was in seeming complete control with a 3-0 lead, 9-4 shots advantage, and seven consecutive defensive shutout quarters in the books. Whatever happened at halftime, the Blast (12-6-2, 36 points) came out as an entirely new team in the third quarter, out-shooting the Sockers 7-0 and controlling every facet of the match. Poarch’s first goal came off a wall pass from new Baltimore defender Emmanuel Belliard and a left-footed blast into the top netting. His second came on a late fourth quarter break when the Sockers were slow to react to a long wall pass forward, ending with a cold-blooded right-footed finish low into the right corner to deliver all three points. The Blast moved into a first-place tie with San Diego. Baltimore outshot San Diego 16-3 in the second half.
“We have to focus,” said head coach Phil Salvagio, who was denied his first chance at his 200th MASL win, “We just let down in the second half, and it was really poor on us.”
The Sockers controlled the opening quarter from start to finish, out-scoring Baltimore 2-0 and out-shooting them 7-1. After strong possession, the home team got on the scoreboard at 8:08 of the first, as defender Cesar Cerda received a pass in the attacking right corner and quickly squared the ball to the middle of the crease, where forward Nick Perera back-heeled the rolling ball into the net through traffic for his fifteenth goal of the season and a 1-0 lead. Just over two minutes later, newcomer Nilton de Andrade was sent in clean on goal when defender Mitchell Cardenas stole a pass at midfield and bounced it off the right wall into de Andrade’s footpath. Nilton slotted the ball into the left-side netting of the goal at 10:12 for his first goal as a Socker, doubling the home team’s advantage.
Chris Toth, fresh off a shutout in Empire on Thursday, faced his one tough test of the opening half seconds later, as defender Chad Poarch of the Blast found his way up the middle for a searing shot that Toth kicked into the corner. San Diego carried their lead into the second quarter and quickly built upon it with some intricate team passing. Tavoy Morgan, back from a four-match suspension for a head-butting red card, accepted a pass in offensive midfield and stepped on it with back-to-goal. He laid the ball off to rookie Andrew Estrella, and as Estrella passed down into the right corner, Morgan took off racing for the back post. Luiz Morales was waiting in the corner to shoot a pass back to Morgan, who slammed home his sixth goal of the season at 1:32, celebrating a 3-0 Sockers lead.
With six minutes left in the half, Cerda found himself one-on-one in the defensive zone with the Blast’s Oumar Sylla, who stepped in and stole the ball away, squirting in on goal. Toth stepped out to deny Sylla’s angle on net, and in doing so, tripped the attacker for a blue card that was unsuccessfully challenged by San Diego. Unperturbed, Boris Pardo stepped off the bench to replace Toth in the penalty box and made a big save as part of a penalty kill for the Sockers, their league-best unit stopping 21-of-24 opposing penalties. Pardo finished the quarter out as San Diego cruised into the locker room with their 3-0 edge.
The moment the third quarter began, all the energy switched to the visitors in white. Baltimore held the ball for the first five minutes of the quarter, kept San Diego from even reaching the offensive side of the field save for a few seconds, and put shots on net, pressuring Toth. The dam finally broke when Baltimore defender Patrick Thompson baited Sockers rookie Andrew Estrella to charge the ball at midfield, creating space behind him for Emmanuel Belliard to slip forward. Belliard wove down the wall before bouncing a walla-scora pass off the goal boards, which two-hopped out to Poarch on left wing, with Estrella a step behind on coverage. He made no mistake to begin the Baltimore comeback at 11:31. The Blast held the Sockers without a single shot in the frame and went to the fourth quarter down a pair.
Adding injury to insult, high-scoring midfielder Luiz Morales limped to the bench halfway through the period and did not return, shutting down one of the only remaining offensive options for San Diego. Already missing their top three playmakers (Charlie Gonzalez and Leonardo de Oliveira injured, Gabriel Costa away at Kings League), the Sockers lost captain Kraig Chiles to an injury late in Thursday’s match at Empire, and the ensuing lack of creativity led to a seemingly impossible stat, as San Diego managed only five shots on goal over the final three quarters of play.
Baltimore continued to apply pressure in the fourth, and the Sockers cracked. A deflected loose ball by little-used forward Maldini Goncalves sent a pass forward for a two-on-one with Thompson and Eber Ospina. Toth charged out and made a dynamic block of Ospina’s bid from left wing, but Blast head coach David Bascome threw his challenge flag, and video review indicated the ball ricocheted off Toth’s hip to his hand. A blue card and a shootout was the ruling. Toth was sent to the penalty box for the second time, and Blast's top scorer Juan Pereira (otherwise a non-factor in the match) was able to walk around Pardo on the shootout and tap home a goal at 3:29 for a 3-2 score.
Instead of a wake-up call, the penalty and goal seemed to serve as a sleeping pill for the Sockers. Moving sluggishly down the floor, San Diego’s defense jogged and watched as Emmanuel Belliard sent a pass to Goncalves in the right corner, and Goncalves sent a wall pass to Ospina for an equalizing goal from left wing at 5:00. Two minutes later, top San Diego defender Mitchell Cardenas found himself alone in the defensive left corner with no outlet help from his teammates—again slow to get into position. As Cardenas turned and put his head down, Ospina picked his pocket from behind and had an easy tap-in to give Baltimore their first lead of the night, 4-3 Blast at 7:17.
In an otherwise perfect second half, Baltimore made one mistake and paid for it when they cleared a ball over the wall in the defensive zone seconds later, gifting the Sockers a top-arc free kick. Sebastian Mendez faked shooting and Perera came around him for a ruthless half-volley into the back of the net at 7:41, re-tying the score at 4-4. With less than two minutes to go and overtime looming, the Sockers were on the attack before losing the ball in a seemingly harmless spot, deep in their zone. Baltimore’s Marco Nascimento sent a long pass up the south wall, and Poarch simply out-ran rookie Adrian Reyes to the ball over two lines, shielded him from his shooting leg, and sent a right-footed rocket past Toth, with the help of defense late to arrive. The Blast led 5-4 at 13:48, and San Diego’s attempt at a sixth attacker went up in steam when they took a penalty for too many men on the field.
The road to the top seed in the MASL playoffs just got a lot harder for the Sockers. Instead of having a lead on the field, San Diego is now tied with Baltimore for the top berth, and Milwaukee lurks a single point behind. The Sockers will go through the gauntlet of a Kansas City home-and-home weekend next, with a Saturday night match in Missouri and a Sunday afternoon match in San Diego. Tickets for the March 15 contest, a 4:00pm PDT kickoff against the Comets, are available at frontwavearena.com or sdsockers.com.