Rhinos fight back

Defending champions show grit in 3-0 win

DANESE KENON Rochester Rhinos Bill Sedgewick, left, and Neathan Gibson celebrate after Gibson scored to give the Rhinos a 2-0 lead against Pittsburgh Saturday.

By Jeff DiVeronica
Democrat and Chronicle

(Sunday, September 30, 2001) -- Call it Rhino mystique or Rhino karma.

Maybe the best term is Rhino resiliency.

For the third time in 13 months, Rochester found itself down a goal in a decisive playoff series at Frontier Field. Once again the defending A-League champions came up big.

The fourth-seeded Rhinos beat 12th-seeded Pittsburgh 3-0 last night before a vibrant crowd of 8,102 to win the two-game, total-goal series 4-2. They will play either No. 1 Richmond or No. 8 Milwaukee in next week's semifinals.

The Riverhounds (13-13-4) had come from behind Wednesday to take the opener 2-1, and put Rochester in a hole. But last night the Rhinos rode midfielder Martin Nash's 30th-minute strike and forward Neathan Gibson's 53rd-minute header -- his first goal as a Rhino -- to the win. Reserve Jimmy Tanner sealed it with a final-minute breakaway.

"It's really gratifying to see guys raise their game when we need it most," said Mali Walton, part of a veteran defense that was air tight most of the match. "Sometimes it's good to judge your character this way. Pittsburgh tried to judge us and now they're starting the bus."

The Rhinos (17-7-4) talk a good game -- even when they're down -- and over the past three years they've always backed it up. This year's unit finally showed last night that it could do the same, with grit and fight and never giving an inch in a physical match (36 fouls, eight yellow cards).

The intensity was obvious, from a near fight between Bill Sedgewick and Pittsburgh's John Jones in the 20th minute, to the perpetual pumping up of the crowd by defender Scott Schweitzer.

"We talked before the game about being accountable, and we have some new guys who haven't won championships with us before. But tonight they showed they were accountable," said coach Pat Ercoli, whose club is 29-1-3 at home over two years and unbeaten in 14 straight home postseason games.

Pittsburgh came in with five straight road wins, but it had never won in Rochester (0-5-1).

"We lost that game in the first five minutes," midfielder and ex-Rhino Henry Gutierrez said, referring to Mike Apple's early breakaway miss wide from 16 yards. "Then Rochester poured it on and didn't give us a sniff.

That goal -- or other first-half looks Leidy Klotz and Welton failed to finish -- would have changed the game. Nash's did. It was a 22-yard laser off a pass from Stoian Mladenov. "I caught it perfectly," Nash said.

Nate Daligcon's chip into the middle of the box set up the series-winner by Gibson, who Gibson out-jumped defender David Wright to nod it just inside the right post from eight yards.

Gibson had been scoreless in 13 starts, but Ercoli stuck with the lanky South African.

"He was a striker. He knows what it's like," said Gibson, who signed July 10 after being cut by Colorado (MLS).