Strikers Edge Silverbacks

The Atlanta Silverbacks closed out the first half of the North American Soccer League season on the last weekend of play to earn the spring championship.

That gave the Silverbacks a spot in the league championship game, regardless of how they play in the fall half of the year.

Since returning to action in early August, Atlanta has not played poorly, but has struggled in the win column.

After just one win and a pair of draws, the Silverbacks finally suffered a loss.

[show_disconnected][show_to accesslevel=’Subscriber’] It came at home, in front of a crowd of 3,822 and it came, 1-0, at the hands of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, currently fourth in league standings.

To complicate matters even further for the Silverbacks, they played the entire second half with only 10 players on the field. They went a man-down in first half stoppage time when midfielder Danny Barrera was ejected for an apparent elbow on an opposing player.

Meanwhile, the Carolina RailHawks, who finished just one point behind Atlanta in the spring half of the season, have posted three wins and a tie in four games to move into first place in the fall standings.

That draw was a 1-1 deadlock against the Silverbacks.

“I thought we gave a good effort in the second half with our 10 players,” said Atlanta coach Brian Haynes. “However, things didn’t go our way tonight.

“This is a team (Fort Lauderdale) that was in last place and they came here and beat us, so now we have to make sure we can regroup.”

Actually, the Strikers’ win was the second since Gunter Kronsteiner took over as head coach during the mid-season break.

“We scored with the first big chance we got and I think we deserved the win,” said Kronsteiner. ” We had a lot of chances to close this game, and the home team also had some chances.

“When I got to this team, the team was in last place and had no confidence. We’ve been working on building that confidence back up and I think they’ve been getting it back.”

Other than the RailHawks, with three wins since the break, the New York Cosmos are the only other NASL team with more than one second-half victory. The Cosmos, which began play in the second half of the season, are currently in second place with a 2-1-1 record.