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June 15, 2000

Three second-half goals send Mariners to Cup's 3rd round

By LEE TOLLIVER
© 2000, The Virginian-Pilot

VIRGINIA BEACH - When the food tastes a little bland on the Food Channel's Emeril Live cooking show, chef Emeril Lagasse likes to ``turn it up a notch.''

Wednesday in the second round of the U.S. Open Cup at the Sportsplex, the Hampton Roads Mariners did a little spicy second-half cooking of their own in a 3-2 victory over the Northern Virginia Royals in front of an announced crowd of 680.

The Mariners advance to a third-round Cup match-up against the Columbus Crew of Major League Soccer in late July. Columbus defeated Cape Cod of the D-3 developmental league 2-0.

Against the D-3 division Royals, Hampton Roads had its way throughout all but a few of the game's 90 minutes, but had trouble taking advantage of numerous opportunities.

As a result, the Mariners found themselves down 1-0 at halftime despite an 11-5 shooting advantage.

Ricky Engelfried had stunned everyone three minutes into play when he sent in a perfectly placed rocket from just outside the right corner of the penalty box.

``We've had this problem all year,'' Mariners coach Shawn McDonald said. ``We just don't take proper care of our chances.'' That changed after halftime, during which McDonald asked his troops to get on the board early and take control.

Michael Lawrence obliged, tying the match less than a minute into the second half after accepting Jeff Dominguez's pass from the right side.

``Not bad, eh?'' Lawrence smiled. ``Looks good when coach asks for one early and we give it to him.

``It's good to come back on a team that has you down, but we simply missed a lot of opportunities in the first half.'' Lawrence's goal showed his teammates how to change that and Jeff Clarke responded to the challenge seven minutes later when he took a feed from Billy Owens from inside the penalty box and lofted a lightly touched header over a Royals keeper who appeared stunned that no offsides flag had been raised.

Paul Marcoullier had been coming up big on too many opportunities to simply let a shot go. But his efforts weren't good enough to prevent his team from going down 3-1 in the 64th minute when Chris Scrofani took a pass from Saul Martinez and dribbled to the left side of the box before turning and beating Marcoullier with a blast from about 10 yards out.

Hampton Roads finished with a 21-9 shooting advantage.