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Heat, Tornados tie

By NINO CARDENAS, LAREDO MORNING TIMES

06/03/2007

One thing was apparent Saturday night the Dallas-Fort Worth Tornados weren’t the same team the Laredo Heat soundly beat on Friday.

The Laredo Heat (4-1-3, 15 points) on a perfect blast by James Flores in compensation time managed to salvage a point with a 2-2 tie at the Student Activity Center.

Down 2-1 head coach Israel Collazo inserted Flores in the 79th minute.

“I went in for a reason,” Flores said.

That reason came in the very last play of the game on a free kick. If the goal didn?t happen there the game was over.

With every Heat player including goalie Ryan Cooper in the Tornados area, Flores capitalized once the ball rolled his way.

A laser from outside the left corner of the box went straight to the back of the net towards the far post.

The back of the net, just in the back of the net was the only thing going through my mind, Flores said.

We didn’t deserve to be down. I feel we came out a little soft and we paid for it. At the end we came together as a team and finished strong. The Tornados (2-3-2, 8 points) failed to hold on to the 2-1 lead and a chance to collect three much needed points.

The Tornados struck first on a penalty kick taken by team captain Bruno Guarda just two minutes into the contest.

A miscue by a Heat defender left Cole Sweetzer a clear path towards Ryan Cooper’s area. Sweetzer was taken down deep inside the box leading referee Jef Kattawar to award the penalty kick.

The Tornados came out of the gates playing a better game than Laredo. Their passes were on cue while the Heat was struggling to find their rhythm.

The complexity of the game changed in the final minutes of the opening half as Laredo started pressing more and more.

One such opportunity came about in the 40th minute when Joshua Fender was tripped inside the area for the penalty kick.

Juan de Dios Ibarra evened the score 1-1 on his second goal via penalty in as many days.

With both squads trying to create the go ahead goal the fouls began to mount up in the second half. The Tornados finished with 22 fouls and the Heat 15.

It wasn’t until the 70th minute when an incredibly hit shot from 25 yards out by defender Owen Bolting swooped down and into the left corner of the net out of the reach of Cooper for a 2-1 lead.