Heat rout Shockers to earn playoff berth

By JOY LINDSAY
LAREDO MORNING TIMES

After weeks of worrying that its season would end before the playoffs began, the Laredo Heat Soccer Club assured itself a postseason slot with a dominant 4-0 win over the New Orleans Shell Shockers on Saturday.

“I think the players are ecstatic, the coaching staff is ecstatic,” Heat Owner Shashi Vaswani said after the game. “It was a big sigh of relief to get into the playoffs, and I like the way we did it with two very strong wins against two very good teams.
“You always want to go into the postseason playing your best, and I think we’re peaking at the right time.”

Felix Garcia scored three goals for the Heat to help lead the club to the biggest win of its season, pushing Laredo into the playoffs once again.

The Heat will now defend its United Soccer Leagues Premier Development League title against the Central Florida Kraze, who host this year’s Southern Conference playoffs.

Laredo headed into Saturday night’s contest neck-and-neck with the El Paso Patriots in a fight for the Mid-South Division’s second and final playoff spot.

The Patriots also earned a win on Saturday in a 3-1 game against the Mid-South champion Austin Aztex but finished the regular season one crucial point behind the Heat thanks to Laredo’s 3-1 win over El Paso earlier this week.

Saturday night’s win improved the Heat’s regular season record to 8-3-4 (28 points), and Laredo ended the regular season with a division-best 33 goals scored.

Central Florida, the Southeast Division champion, finished its season at 11-3-2 (35 points) with 38 goals scored.

On Saturday, the Heat and Shell Shockers held each other scoreless in the first half in spite of Vaswani called “dangerous chances” for both teams.

Laredo was at a disadvantage getting acclimated to the field in New Orleans, which is only 56 feet wide.

Garcia got a big scoring chance as the first half expired, running in one-on-one against the New Orleans goalkeeper, but he was tripped up in a play that earned the goalie a red card.

Danny Galvan took the Heat’s penalty shot, but it was saved by the Shell Shockers’ backup goalie to keep the game 0-0 headed into the half.

Going a man up was all Laredo needed to explode offensively, with Garcia netting the Heat’s first goal in the 48th minute on an assist from Isaac Morales.

Garcia scored again in the 65th minute on an assist from Juan de Dios Ibarra, then Raul Quinones made it 3-0 in the 75th minute on another assist from Morales.

In the 77th minute, Garcia scored his third and the Heat’s fourth goal of the game on an assist from Juan de Dios Ibarra.

The Southern Conference playoffs will be held July 25-27 in Sanford, Flor., just outside of Orlando.

First-round action will pit the 2007 PDL champion Heat against the 2004 PDL champion Kraze on Friday for the second time in the teams’ history.

Laredo won the first meeting 4-0 at home in 2007.

The Aztex will face the yet-to-be-determined second seed from the Southeast Division in Friday’s other game. The winners of those games will face each other on Saturday.