Heat fall in second straight game to Patriots

By NINO CARDENAS
LAREDO MORNING TIMES

Things are getting hot in the Mid South Division and, appropriately, the Laredo Heat are the source.

The Heat assured that the Mid South is going to be up for grabs until the bitter end with a loss on Saturday night.

The Heat dropped their second game against the El Paso Patriots 2-1, allowing the border rival to tie them in the standings at 18 points for a share of second place.

The effects of the losses were evident on Heat’s head coach Israel Collazo’s voice via phone as he looked for the right words to say.

“We lost, we simply lost,” Collazo said. “Honestly I just can’t talk right now. It was two critical games, but even so we are tied for second place.”

The Mississippi Brilla (4-4-2, 14) jumped over New Orleans (3-4-3, 12) and Baton Rouge (9-4-6, 13) in the standings with two victories over Dallas (2-0) on Friday and New Orleans on Sunday (2-1).

Baton Rouge and Dallas (3-6-3, 12) finished in a scoreless stalemate Saturday.

Division leader Austin Aztex (7-1-1, 22 points) and Houston Leones (3-7-0, 9) were idle over the weekend.

Making the weekend losses tougher is the loss of top scorer Felix Garcia, who was red carded late in the contest and is going to miss the Heat’s road game versus the Leones next week.

Also missing the contest is Oliver Mulamba who received his fifth yellow card of the season automatically suspending him for one game.

Garcia ran into the Patriots goalie and got up favoring his right leg and walked gingerly off the field. The good news for Laredo is that Collazo indicated that his lefty striker was ok, as was everybody else on the team.

The Patriots took advantage of dead ball situations and scored both their goals via corner kicks.

The first in the 18th minute when Adam Hooi found Antonio Barrrera inside the box. Michael Greigo then scored his third goal in as many games in the 30th minute.

The Heat had several missed opportunities none bigger then Juan De Dios Ibarra’s penalty try in the 24th minute, which Patriot goalie Robert Fite saved.

Laredo mounted a late comeback attempt and was aided by the five minutes of compensation, but ultimately came short.

Laredo’s Stiven Ospina erased the shutout with a goal in the 84th minute.

He took advantage of a Fite miscue in which he let a Steve Su lob go through his legs and off the left post. Ospina raced towards the ball and beat out a diving Fite for his first goal as a member of the Heat.