Defending their back-to-back Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) Ron Newman Cup championships, the San Diego Sockers are off to a fast 6-0 start to the season. Their most recent victory, a 7-3 beating of the Kansas City Comets (4-4-2) Sunday night in the first interleague matchup of the season, shows the Sockers are expecting nothing short of a third title, a rare three-peat.
Before the 2021 season, the Sockers had not won an indoor soccer title since they won four straight between 2010-13 in the Professional Arena Soccer League (now MASL). Since winning seven of their last eight games to win their first MASL title in seven years in 2021, the Sockers boast a 42-1-2 record. Their only regulation loss came to the Ontario Fury (now known as the Empire Strykers) in the second game of the MASL Championship in 2021).
On a rainy Sunday evening in front of their largest home crowd of the season with 1,781 fans in attendance at Pechanga Arena, the Sockers won their sixth straight game to open the season in a physical matchup with the Comets, the only game the two teams will play each other this year.
Defender Cesar Cerda scored the game’s first goal after 23 minutes of scoreless soccer, the longest stretch to begin a game without scoring a goal this season for the Sockers. After that, the team exploded for five goals in the second half, their second-most in a single half this season.
Goalkeeper Boris Pardo and the San Diego defense held Kansas City to no goals in the opening half, just the second time this season the Comets were held scoreless in any half. The Sockers’ 3.17 goals allowed per game is the best in the MASL by a wide margin with the second-best in the league being Chihuahua Savage’s 4.5 goals allowed per game.
Up next:
The Sockers will prepare for a weekend double-header in Harrisburg, Pa. as they face the Eastern Division’s last-place Harrisburg Heat (1-6) in the only two matchups this season between the two teams.
San Diego’s Tavoy Morgan spent his first two MASL seasons in Harrisburg where he scored 42 goals in 37 games played.
The two games are set for 4:05 p.m. PT on Saturday, Jan. 21 and 2:05 p.m. PT on Sunday, Jan. 22 at Equine Arena at The Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, Pa.