Ringing In The New Year
Soccer News: The San Diego Sockers and the Tacoma Stars will kick off 2016 in the first of three matches between the clubs this season. The sides will meet in San Diego on February 11th before closing out the series back at the ShoWare Center on February 20th.
The Sockers swept Tacoma last season going 4-0 while outscoring their Northwest rivals by an aggregate scoreline of 52-21, but both teams have very different rosters and Tacoma has already shown a vast improvement this season.
STREAKING SOCKERS
The Sockers have a few streaks worth keeping an eye on. The club is looking for its third consecutive win and its first three-game winning streak of the season. Individually, Kraig Chiles has recorded 11 assists in the team’s last four games while Matt Clare has nine goals over that same period (including two hat-tricks). At the time of writing, Chiles is second in the league in assists with 16 and fifth in points. He trails Missouri’s Vahid Assadpour who leads both categories with 21 assists and 33 points respectively.
SEEING DOUBLE
In the 11-5 win over Atletico Baja in Tijuana, Enrique Tovar, Rey Reza and Nick Perera all scored twice as the Sockers recorded their highest goal-tally of the season. It was all three players first multi-goal game of the season.
WELL DESERVED RECOGNITION
Enrique Tovar was named to the Week 10 MASL Team of the Week for his two goal and one assist performance against Atletico Baja. Tovar struck twice off the power-play. Both goals were the result of great movement by
the defender within the box-formation being employed by Atletico Baja’s penalty killing unit. The former Turlock Express player/coach also showed his defensive prowess, often forcing players backwards after his excellent positioning cut off their shooting angles. Chris Toth, Chiles and Clare all received honorable mention. Toth made 13 saves on 17 shots faced before coming off at the 9:30 mark in the fourth quarter with the game well in hand. Chiles had a goal and four assists while Clare recorded a hat-trick.
THE POWER-PLAY IS BACK ON SONG
After putting up a biscuit on three attempts against Ontario, the Sockers went 3-4 with the man-advantage against Atletico Baja. Their success south of the boarder has propelled the Sockers’ power play back to the upper echelons of the MASL. San Diego is back up to second at 10-17 and a success rate of 58.82%. Only Saltillo stands above them with an impressive 7-8 conversion rate that has them sitting on 87.5%.
NEW BLOOD
Over the holidays, the Sockers acquired Luan Sales Oliveira from the Ontario Fury for future consideration.
The 27-year-old Brazilian struck five goals and six assists during his seven games with the Fury. That included two goals and an assists in two matches against the Sockers. Dating back to last year in Milwaukee, Oliveira has 27 goals and 22 assists in 30 MASL appearances (including play-offs).
ABOUT TACOMA:
The Tacoma Stars are in the process of an extraordinary turnaround. After going 4-16 last season, the club already has a better record through 11 games at 7-4. Tacoma’s roster is largely based around some of the area’s best players including the Cox brothers in former Real Salt Lake’s Raphael and the younger Jamael. Another local product is probably one of the best indoor goalkeepers of the modern era in Danny Waltman. Phil Salvagio and his Sockers players know Waltman well as the Gig Harbor native backstopped the American’s successful campaign in last summer’s WMF World Cup.
One player that is not from Washington, but will be very familiar to the Sockers is Dan Antoniuk. The Philadelphia native had eight goals and four assists in 18 regular season appearances for San Diego last year. Antoniuk is second on the Stars in scoring with 11 goals in 10 games played, just two points behind Derek Johnson who leads Tacoma with seven goals and six assists in 11 contests.
Related Article: Sockers Finish 2015 With A Bang
