By Jim Krajewski
Reno Gazette-Journal
Monday May 28th, 2001

Night and day.

That was the difference between the A League Seattle Sounders and the Division III Northern Nevada Aces soccer teams.

The Sounders scored three times in the first half en route to a 5-0 win over the Aces Sunday in front of about 200 fans at Wooster High School.

Seattle’s Viet Nguyen scored two of the three, sandwiching a goal by Jason Farrell. The Sounders added goals by Peter Hattrup and Chad Brown in the second half.

“They just don’t have the budget we have to work with,” Seattle coach Bernie James said of the Aces. “They have a good team though. They’re building.”

Seattle was coming off a scoreless tie at Utah Saturday night. The Sounders then had a sleepless night as they left their hotel at 1 a.m. and flew to Los Angeles before arriving in Reno at 4 a.m., to find their hotel rooms weren’t ready.

The teams battled fairly evenly at first before Nguyen found the back of the net from the right side at the 23-minute mark.

Farrell added his goal nine minutes later, then Nguyen scored again four minutes later.

“We should have had about three or four goals in the first 10 minutes,” James said. “But we certainly didn’t take (the Aces) for granted. We had to work our butts off to beat them.”

The Aces were coming off a 1-0 loss to the A League Portland Timbers on May 19 and coach Beto Alcaraz thought circumstances were improving for his squad.

“Today was like day and night,” Alcaraz said. “It was the total opposite. “I thought we had been getting better, then today was a total let down.”

The Aces had several opportunities to close the gap Sunday including in the final few minutes of the first half when the ball was batted back and forth a few feet in front of the Seattle goalkeeper, Rich Cullen.

Cullen ended with four saves to 10 for the Aces keeper Rob Buchanan.

The Aces missed another opportunity near the end of the game when Alfredo Chavarin drew Cullen out of the box but narrowly missed the open goal to the left.

“We had opportunities that could have brought us back into the game,” Alcaraz said.

He said one reason for his team’s lack of cohesion is difficulty getting everybody to show up at practice.

“They’ve got to come to practice,” Alcaraz said. “We can’t work on the things we need to. But they’ve got to make a living too. I’m not going to tell them to miss work to be at practice.”

He said that it’s difficult to work on offensive plays with players missing.

“As long as we’ve got everybody touching the ball really quick and got everybody moving forward, we look really good,” he said.

He added that getting his midfielders more involved is the key to revving up the offense.

There were several yellow cards issued on both sides Sunday as the Aces vented frustration. The Sounders were much bigger and more physical than the Aces.

The Aces return to Division III play for the rest of the season starting with two games Friday and Saturday at the Utah Blitzz.

The Aces return home on June 9 for a 5 p.m. game against the Tucson Fireballs.

“It should be more equal competition,” Alcaraz said.