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Written by Mario Annicchiarico
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Thursday, 02 April 1998 |
Those of you venturing to the Coliseum tonight expecting to see an offensive soccer explosion should think again.
When the Edmonton Drillers play host to the Kansas City Attack (7:05 p.m. start) in the opening game of the best-of-three NPSL National Conference quarter-final, it will be a clinic in defence.
Edmonton, with a very ordinary record of 18-22, sat atop the league in fewest goals allowed at 418.
Kansas City, the defending champions, maintained a .500 mark of 20-20 on the year, allowing 497 tallies, fourth lowest in the NPSL.
Don't expect things to change overnight.
"Obviously as a goalkeeper I don't want to see a shootout," chuckled Drillers goalkeeper Scott Hileman, who led the league with a 10.09 goals against average. "We have similar styles and if we just take advantage of our opportunities hopefully we'll come out on top."
The Drillers lost three of the four matchups during the regular season, but were only manhandled once, an 11-2 loss in the game immediately following Lloyd Barker's serious neck injury where Edmonton faced an abundance of adversity.
Injuries have taken their toll on the local club. The Drillers are now without defender Todd Rattee, who broke his leg and dislocated an ankle last weekend. Rattee was a team leader on defence and ranked fifth in the NPSL in shots blocked with 73.
"We have to pay our toll for that," said Hileman. "He's been a huge part of this team. Either Dougie (Holloway) or Kevin (Holness) will be back in that defensive spot and I think they'll be fine."
But Rattee also added some scoring punch from the back, something the Drillers seriously lack. Captain Bill Sedgewick is another defender capable of scoring, but he too is battling the injury bug.
"It's a playoff game, you have to play," he said, while nursing a sore back at practice yesterday.
"For Todd this has been his break-through year," offered Sedgewick, also just back from a broken foot. "He was gaining so much confidence and scoring on defence, which we didn't have many defenders do. But we have guys who can step in.
We're facing some adversity, but not unlike any other team."
With the cautious styles these two teams play Holness or Holloway will definitely be in the spotlight.
"We're very similar in what we do on the field, except maybe they have more experience than we do," said Drillers coach Ross Ongaro.
"We both have a well-balanced scoring attack and good goaltending. We definitely need to keep them under 10 goals to have a chance to win this game."
The Attack have allowed just 11.1 goals a game, while scoring an average of 12.4 per contest. Edmonton records just 10.7 goals offensively while giving up a meagre 10.5 per outing.
The difference just may be specialty teams where the Drillers sit at the bottom of the league with a 29.82 power-play percentage. Kansas City is fifth from the bottom at 33.33 per cent.
However, the Attack does feature Brian Loftin, who sits fourth in NPSL shootout-goals percentage at .615.
Edmonton's offence needs to come from the likes of Martin Dugas, Dominic Mobilio and Carmen D'Onofrio. The latter two are also coming off of knee injuries.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 28 January 2007 )
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