Wave Lockdown Sockers 7-2
The Milwaukee Wave scored the final seven goals of the match unanswered, running away late to post a 7-2 win over the San Diego Sockers on Friday night in Match Two of the MASL Ron Newman Cup Finals. A Frontwave Arena-record crowd of 5,521 were denied a championship celebration and left disappointed as the series is tied 1-1, with a deciding Match Three coming up Monday night at 7:05pm.
Defender Cesar Correa rose up the final quarter with a brilliant bicycle-kick sidewall assist and two empty net goals to lead the Wave scorers. Ian Bennett, Max Ferdinand, Alex Sanchez and Lucas Nesthus also scored for Milwaukee, who out-shot the Sockers 21-8 through the first three quarters, dominating possession and control. Unlikely defenders Ben Ramin and Sean Callahan scored goals for San Diego, but each and every top-line scorer on the Sockers were shut out of the net, hitting six different posts and crossbars in an enervating display of near-accuracy.
San Diego played without a quartet of players who were suspended by the MASL for post-match incidents with fans in Milwaukee, as well as a red card shown to Sockers captain Cesar Cerda at the final horn of the match for kicking a player as he was tackled to the ground from behind. Cerda, as well as midfielders Luiz Morales and Jesus Pacheco, had to watch from the stands as the Wave pulled away, but will be available for Match Three on Monday. Meanwhile, standout Wave rookie Oscar Flores suffered a quad injury during warmups and was unable to play for Milwaukee. His status for Match Three is unknown.
While the biggest crowd in Frontwave Arena history, the drums of the supporters and the energy were all behind San Diego, it was Milwaukee that came out with calm, poise and control to start the match, putting the Sockers into a defensive crouch. Chris Toth came up with three key saves and defenders blocked seven shots in a scoreless first quarter that saw the Wave out-shoot the Sockers 10-2, and San Diego held to counter-attacks and sprints to try and find their offense.
Unexpected faces then rose to claim the spotlight and unlock the scoreboard. After another set of Wave possession, the Sockers pushed a ball up to Drew Ruggles on the left midfield wall, who spotted Ben Ramin running down the center of the field and passed the ball out in front of him. Ramin, a defender with 35 career goals in 10 MASL seasons, hustled onto the ball and used a clever left-footed touch to slide it past Perez and into the right-side netting at 3:55 of the second quarter, his first goal of the season in any competition. The Sockers led 1-0.
Three minutes later, it was one of the players subbed into action due to the Match One suspensions who got his moment of glory. After Perera trapped a ball in the right corner through a double team, he trickled a pass into the crease, where veteran Sean Callahan, making his first start of the playoffs, found a defender draped on him and used a silky backheel to pass the ball off the left post and into the net. Perez dove back and tried to clear the ball in vain, as the goal stood up on video review for 2-0 at the 7:31 mark.
Down by a pair, the Wave started to turn to “Jerry Ball”, where they send goalkeeper Gerardo Perez up into the attack, emptying their net. Milwaukee started to find a new dynamic to their attack, and the Sockers were unable in the quarter to find the key dispossession that leads to a shot downfield into the empty net. San Diego thought they had a goal in the final minute when Charlie Gonzalez slid to his left foot and sent a shot past Perez, but it clanked the right post and came out.
Less than a minute later, the Wave had the answer they had long been looking for. With Perez sprinting down the field to serve as sixth attacker, veteran forward Ricardo Carvalho had the space to send a wall pass through the crease to the far post, where 42-year-old legend Ian Bennett settled the ball and calmly shot it home at 14:40, turning a nearly perfect first half for San Diego into very much a match at 2-1. An equalizer was almost on their toe before the half ended, but a last-second shot hit the post just before the horn, and the Sockers took a one-goal lead into the halftime locker room. Milwaukee out-shot San Diego 15-5 in the first half.
Within seconds of the start of the second half, everyone knew the Wave were coming for the win and to force Match Three. Literally, ten seconds. On the opening kickoff of the third quarter, Mario Alvarez sent a long, skipping pass along two lines into the right corner, where Max Ferdinand ran on the ball and all in one motion turned to shoot. The 39-year-old legend slotted the ball past Toth and inside the left post at :10 for a 2-2 tie that set the tone for what was to come. In the tenth minute of the quarter, Sockers rookie Andrew “Pato” Estrella, starting for the suspended Pacheco, kicked a defensive clearance out of the zone under pressure, surrendering a top-arc free kick to the Wave. League Golden Boot winner Alex Sanchez made short work of the set piece, smashing a rising shot just inside the right post/crossbar joint at 9:34 of the third for a lead Milwaukee would never relinquish.
San Diego’s best chance to get back into the match came with 45 seconds left in the third quarter, when rookie goalkeeper Gerardo Perez (8-of-10 saves) was called for handling the ball outside his crease on a hand save, and was shown a blue card penalty, which comes with a shootout. Charlie Gonzalez took the shootout for the Sockers against Milwaukee backup keeper William Banahene, who came in cold off the bench and watched Charlie’s shot whistle past him—only to collide with the inside of the right post and shoot out past Gonzalez’s reach. Banahene and the Wave then successfully defended the ensuing two-minute power play, critically holding the lead in place.
The fourth quarter saw San Diego selling out trying to find an equalizer, only to be denied over and over by a Wave team committed to defensive positioning and blocked shots. Six minutes into the final frame, a ball bounced high in the air after multiple possession attempts and bounded toward the left mid-wall, where Cesar Correa used a bicycle kick to send the ball over his head and to the right wing of the field, where rookie Lucas Nesthus—only starting because of the Flores pre-match injury—ran on the ball and lifted a clinical shot into the upper V at 6:17 for a 4-2 lead. The Sockers took out keeper Chris Toth (10-of-14 saves) for a sixth attacker with five minutes left in the match, but the Wave easily defused the strategy with three straight empty net goals at 13:42, 14:04 and 14:58 to set the final score-line all the way out to 7-2 Wave.
Both teams now have 48 hours to plot and plan before Monday’s MASL Grand Final, as the Sockers will again host the Wave for a 7:05pm kickoff. Two-for-one tickets to the most important match of the season are available now at frontwavearena.com or sdsockers.com.