Rhinos homeward bound

Rochester feels like a winner after tough 1-1 tie in Toronto

By Jeff DiVeronica
Democrat and Chronicle

TORONTO (September 23, 2000) -- If the Rochester Rhinos think they can be a championship team for a third straight year, last night they took a step toward proving it with a 1-1 tie with Toronto.

Fourth-seeded Rochester fell behind No. 7 Toronto in the 63rd minute, but instead of pouting the Rhinos picked it up. They answered 12 minutes later on Dan Stebbins' goal and escaped Game 1 of the A-League Eastern Conference finals feeling pretty good about a tie on the road.

"To come back from down 1-0 is pretty much a win for us," Rhinos defender Scott Schweitzer said at Varsity Stadium, where 2,811 fans, including a loud throng from Rochester, braved cold, rainy conditions. "That showed a lot of character."

The deciding match of the two-game, total-goal series starts at 6:05 p.m. tomorrow at Frontier Field. Think of it this way: The series is a 180-minute game and it's tied at halftime.

"Now we have to do our business at home," said coach Pat Ercoli, whose team has won 15 straight at Frontier since losing its May 6 season opener, 2-1, to Toronto (16-11-5). "And if you can't do your business at home then you don't deserve to move on."

If the Rhinos (20-9-3) win they advance a third straight league title game next Saturday at Frontier. If they tie, two 15-minute overtimes will be played. OT is the first tiebreaker. If that remains scoreless, the next tiebreaker is points from each game -- which would be even because of the two ties. The third tiebreaker is home goals, so if it's a 2-2 tie or more that would fall in Rochester's favor.

Confused yet?

"Once we scored to tie it you could see it in their faces," midfielder Yari Allnutt said of the Lynx, who had been 1-0-2 at home this season against Rochester. "Now we have the momentum coming home."

The first half yielded off-and-on rain but no goals, although the Rhinos came close twice. Lowe nearly bent in a 20-yard shot in the third minute but it glanced off the crossbar. In the 36th minute, he won a ball near the endline and grounded a pass right in front that Toronto goal keeper Theo Zagar couldn't collect. Dan Stebbins got to it on the far post but the Rochester forward's tight shot went off the side netting.

Lowe took his share of whacks from Lynx players and protested a few, but it was his 40th-minute complaint about an official calling the ball out of bounds on the sideline that drew a costly yellow card. It gave him three for the playoffs -- the league limit for accumulated yellow cards -- and he'll have to miss tomorrow's match.

Toronto pressured early in the second half and it paid off in the 63rd minute when Francisco Dos Santos scored on a play that would have been in the running for A-League Goal of the Year if there was such an award.

The Brazilian forward, standing 8 yards in front off the far post after Marco Reda's corner kick that Adrian Serioux kept in with a header, converted a bicycle kick. It was so well struck and beat the reflexes of goalkeeper Scott Vallow, who saw it sail over his head before he could get his hands up.

Moments later, Vallow kept it from becoming 2-0 by tipping Juan Arango's point-blank header over the bar.

Toronto was without one of its key playmakers in Nikki Vignjevic, a Rhino during the 1997 season, and starting defender Milan Kojic (injured hamstring). According to Lynx officals, Vignjevic and his brother, fellow midfielder Nebojsa, departed Thursday for their native Serbia, for "family reasons" and also will miss tomorrow's game.