With Feuer in Net, Salsa Giving Up Little : Soccer: Scoreless streak ends, but that’s the only glitch in a 4-2 victory over Tampa Bay.
FULLERTON — This is what Salsa opponents must shoot the ball past if they hope to score a goal:
Arms and legs. Seemingly dozens of blurry arms and legs, limbs that look to be moving in sync and out of sync concurrently as if in front of a trick mirror.
It’s Ian Feuer standing in the line of fire for the Salsa, all 6 feet 6 of him. He is the tallest player in the APSL, and his work in goal helped the Salsa move into third place as they pureed Tampa Bay, 4-2, Saturday in front of an announced crowd of 4,311 in Titan Stadium.
For Salsa opponents, goals have been harder to come by than a snowman-building contest in Huntington Beach. Feuer had presided over 226 consecutive shutout minutes before Tampa Bay’s Pierre Morice broke the streak on a free kick one minute into the second half.
Given the Salsa’s offensive attack on Saturday, that goal was about as effective as an umbrella in a blizzard.
What is it like shooting against Feuer?
“It’s impossible,” said the Salsa’s Paul Wright, the APSL’s leading scorer. “In practice, you go against him and get so frustrated. He’s so big; he covers so much space. It’s really tough.”
Feuer entered the game with a 1.41 goals-against average, and he leads the league in shootout accuracy at 93%.
With Feuer in the nets, the Salsa had shut out Ft. Lauderdale last Saturday and Colorado last Sunday and then turned around and stuffed Tampa Bay for the first 46 minutes Saturday.
By then, the Salsa (9-3) had the evening well in hand.
Wright started things off by chipping in a penalty kick just 16 minutes into the first half.
Thirteen minutes later, Phillip Gyau, who was added to the starting lineup earlier this month, re-directed a Lawrence Lozzano pass past the head of Tampa Bay goalkeeper Bill Andracki.
The Salsa offense was just heating up. At the 38-minute mark, Paulinho made it 3-0 by tapping in a ball that bounced off of at least three other players as it snaked its way through the mob in front of the net.
And that wasn’t all--for the Paulinho or the Salsa. Paulinho scored another goal on a breakaway at the 38-minute mark, making it 4-0 and allowing the Salsa to waltz through the second half pretty much uncontested.
Although Tampa Bay (4-12) snapped the Salsa’s scoreless streak, the Rowdies remained pretty quiet throughout the evening.
Salsa Notes
The Salsa plays host to Club Guadalajara tonight in an exhibition at 6:05 p.m. . . . The team returns to APSL action Sunday, playing host to Toronto at 4:05 p.m. . . . Entering Saturday’s game, the Salsa’s Paul Wright and Tampa Bay’s Paul Dougherty were tied for the league scoring lead at 19 points apiece. Wright had seven goals and five assists, and Dougherty had six goals and seven assists. The Salsa’s Paulinho was tied for third.
