Brazilian Luis Piffer and the rest of the San Diego Sockers’ defense had one major task on Sunday night: keep Ontario’s Franck Tayou — one of the most prolific scorers in the Major Arena Soccer League — off the score sheet as much as possible.
Not among the priorities: score goals.
To the Sockers’ delight, Piffer ended up doing his part on both ends.
Buoyed by tenacious defending and some brilliant saves by goaltender Boris Pardo, San Diego limited Tayou to only one tally, and it was Piffer who scored the game-winning goal early in the fourth quarter to lift the Sockers to a 4-3 victory at Pechanga Arena.
It was one shot in the game, one goal for Piffer, who had attempted only one other shot in the five previous games he played this season.
For the winner, the Sockers’ Taylor Bond won a loose ball at midfield and fed a perfect on the left to Piffer, who took the ball in stride and buried it with a hard shot at 4:28 of the fourth.
Bond contributed two goals, giving him three for the season and six total in his last 24 games with San Diego.
A native of Amparo, Brazil, the 31-year-old Piffer is not unfamiliar to finding the net. He played college soccer for Grand View in Iowa and was twice his conference’s player of the year as an attacking midfielder. He said he was switched to defense when he began playing for the outdoor Minnesota United of the North American Soccer League.
A skilled pro futsal player, Piffer subsequently played for three MASL teams, including the Sockers. He had to return to Brazil for a full year after suffering a broken foot, and the Sockers signed him this past offseason.
San Diego’s seventh straight win was another uneasy battle, though at least the Sockers (7-1) didn’t trail in the third quarter, as they had in their previous three victories.
The game was tied 2-2 at halftime, and San Diego took the lead when Slavisa Ubiparipovic rocketed a left-footed free kick over the hands of Ontario goalie Chris Toth only 61 seconds into the third quarter. It was his team-leading eighth goal of the season.
Tayou, though, knotted the match again midway through the third with his usual type of goal — by outmuscling Sockers defenders in the box to poke in a ricochet. The 29-year-old Cameroonian has an uncanny knack for scoring, having netted 193 goals in 71 regular-season games, or 2.71 goals per game, going into the match.
In just the three previous games before playing the Sockers, Tayou scored 13 times, or six more goals than any Socker had for the season.
Ontario (2-4) got two goals from a player who appears to be a rising star in the league, 22-year-old Justin Stinson.
San Diego has won 10 straight games over Ontario, but this was among the toughest, in part because the Sockers were severely short-handed on the bench. Forward Kraig Chiles (hip) was among several players out with injuries, while Erick Tovar was serving a one-game suspension. He was red-carded at the end of the Jan. 29 home win over Sonora for leaving the bench as the teams began to scuffle.
The Sockers next play at home on Jan. 19 against Mesquite before facing five straight road games on the East Coast, Florida and Mexico.
