Heat pick up first win versus Capitals

The Laredo Heat collected their first three points of the season with a 1-0 road win over Baton Rouge and Heat coach Israel Collazo earned his first red card of his coaching career."Honestly we were struggling to get chances on Friday (versus Brilla) and worried about creating scoring opportunities today, but we were satisfied and it's a great feeling because it puts us back in the race for the Open Cup," Heat owner Shashi Vaswani said.

The victory places the Heat tied with the Austin Aztex at the top of the Mid South division. It also earns them four of the six possible points that count toward the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup qualifying.

The last two cup qualifying games are the next two home contests. The first is the Heat's home opener against Dallas-Fort Worth Tornados and the following Friday they welcome the Aztex.

"We controlled the midfield very well. Defensively we were dominating, but we did miss Felix Garcia on offense that what's we've been lacking," Vaswani said.

The offensive woes in the opening two games are expected to be alleviated by the debut of Garcia on Friday, who returned form his trip with the U.S. Under 20 national team.

"Collazo played 'Nicho' Infante up front with Isaac Morales and they combined with Johnny Ibarra (mid fielder) to have great ball control and possession. We need a little bit of speed., when you add Felix to that mix, it's incredible," Vaswani said.

Last season, the speed was provided by Hector "Gota" Vallejo, he is not expected to be able to join the team this season.

On Saturday, the Austin Aztex defeated fellow expansion team Houston Leones 2-0. The Leones are tied for second with Baton Rouge, which defeated El Paso 2-0 Saturday. The Patriots collected their first point of the season with a 2-2 tie Sunday versus New Orleans.

Mississippi only played one game over the weekend, a 0-0 tie against Laredo. The Dallas-Fort Worth Tornados were idle in the opening weekend.

The Heat will be without the services of Collazo for at least one game, the league is going to look at the videotape to see if he warrants a longer suspension.

He won't be allowed to be on the sidelines on Friday and can talk to the team only before and after the match, although he is allowed to conduct practices.

Oliver Mulamba, the older brother of Heat player Greg, found the back of the net in the eleventh minute. He was also key in erasing the Capitals game-tying goal with a goalline clearing save in the 35th minute.

Collazo was ejected prior to the beginning of the second half. It all began when a Heat player said something to a line judge, as they walked into the lockers at halftime.

The referee presented the player with a yellow as they returned to the field, the sudden infraction came as a surprise to Collazo. Who stepped unto the field and approached the referee questioning why he carded his player. Once the referee determined he was being dissident he red carded the coach.

Further stoppage occurred when Collazo went to watch the game from the stands, not aware that he had to spend the rest of the game in the locker room.

"The ref didn't want to deal with it. The ref claimed he (Collazo) was out of control. I don't like to complain about the refs and tell the coach not to, but this referee was just off of some of his calls, it went both ways," Vaswani said.

In all five Heat players were carded and one Capital player was shown a red card in the 90th minute.

The Mid South division stands as follows Austin 1-0-1 for four points: Laredo 1-0-1 for four points; Baton Rouge 1-1-0 for three points; Houston 1-1-0 for three points; Mississippi 0-0-1 for one point; El Paso 0-1-1 for one point; New Orleans 0-1-1 for one point and DFW 0-0-0.