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Tuesday, September 28, 1999 By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
Midfielder Gary DePalma knows the Riverhounds are walking "a fine line" as they head into tonight's deciding game in the A-League Eastern Conference quarterfinals.
Three days after their 1-0 upset of the Rochester Raging Rhinos -- the darlings not only of the A-League, but also of the entire American soccer community after they beat four Major League Soccer teams to win the U.S. Open Cup -- the Riverhounds still haven't come down from the thrill of their biggest victory.
Which is good as the Riverhounds head into Game 3 at 7:30 tonight at Frontier Field in Rochester, N.Y., where more than 11,000 screaming fans are expected to cheer on their beloved Raging Rhinos. Unless, of course, they get so caught up in their emotions that they can't play up to their potential.
"You can't be over, you can't be under," Coach John Kowalski said. "We need to be right there on the crest of the wave."
The Riverhounds were exactly in the right place Saturday night, when they beat Rochester for the first time in three tries. Both regular-season games had been close -- the Riverhounds lost 2-1 at Frontier Field in mid-July and 1-0 in overtime at home in mid-August.
So despite the Raging Rhinos' credentials, the Riverhounds weren't exactly intimidated. Said forward Michael Apple, "We believed they that they're not a better team than us."
And the Riverhounds proved that Saturday, putting their 6-2 loss in Game 1 behind them and playing with far more intensity than they had showed Kowalski in the two practices leading up to the game.
"They didn't expect a team to come after them like we did," said DePalma, who assisted on Saturday's winning goal. "They just weren't expecting to get hit. We definitely shook them up."
Plus, the Riverhounds played stellar defense, limiting Rochester's offense to four shots on goal and permitting no corner kicks.
"It's difficult to play Rochester because they have good players and they take advantage of any mistakes you make," defender Nick Terlecky said. "You have to concentrate 100 percent against them. Other teams, they won't always take advantage of your mental mistakes. But Rochester will."
The Riverhounds aren't exactly enamored of the Raging Rhinos. The fans -- seated so close behind the visitors' bench that the Riverhounds had a policeman there in the second half of the first game of the series -- spend much of the game hurling insults at the Riverhounds. And the players aren't shy, either, talking trash most of the game.
By the end of Saturday's game, the Riverhounds had a favorite putdown: You guys don't know how to win. Said Apple, "I love when they do that -- it just feeds the fire. I've never wanted to score on a team so badly."
And as for the Raging Rhinos? Well, the feeling appears to be mutual, at least as far as the Riverhounds can tell.
Kowalski thought the home crowd was a factor for the Riverhounds Saturday -- "there was kind of an invisible electricity," he said -- and he expects the Raging Rhinos fans to have an impact on tonight's game, as well.
"I think the first 10 or 15 minutes will determine the level of the emotions," he said.
The Riverhounds are approaching tonight's game just as they did Game 2. Kowalski said the team's energy level was low in practice yesterday, just as it was Friday. Only one thing appears to be working against them.
The night before Game 2, the entire team had dinner courtesy of DePalma's mother, who provided salad, rigatoni, lasagna and meatballs, the latter so good that Apple was still craving them three days later. During the meal, she told Apple and DePalma that they were overdue to hook up for another goal.
And viola, that's how the Riverhounds won.
"She said she would cook us dinner again any time," DePalma said as he prepared to board the team bus for the four-and-a-half hour ride to Rochester. "But we had to leave today."
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