STORM BURY COUGARS
Ball's two goals, assist give Chicago first win

By: Gary Zahara

Sometimes a little patience goes a long way. John Ball and the Chicago Storm waited two games before exploding on offense, while goalie Danny Waltman and the defense clamped down giving the Storm their first win of the season, 8-4 over the winless expansion California Cougars in front of 1,506 Saturday night at the Pavilion.

Ball, an off season pickup in the dispersal draft from Cleveland and their leading scorer last year, scored two goals and added an assist. Awadalla Morad tallied a goal and assist as the Storm(1-2) rebounded convincingly after two poor performances against the Milwaukee Wave to start the season.

With both teams battling to a 1-all tie after one quarter, the Storm lit the lamp three times. Brazilian star Fabio Ribeiro put the Storm back on top 2-1 two and a half minutes into the second quarter. After a ridiculous 5-minute delay of game penalty against Byron Alvarez, California's Bernie Lilavois tied it up two minutes later.

But Lazo Alavanja and Matt Johnson scored 23 seconds apart to send the Storm into the locker room with a 4-2 lead at the break. After Lilavois scored his third goal of the game to cut the Storm lead to 4-3, Gus Kartes went coast to coast for the winning goal with 7:02 left in the third.

It was Kartes' third goal in as many games.

"I'm glad that we won but we're still not where we have to be. We left a lot of chances out on the field and if we want to reach our goal we've got to get better," head coach Frank Klopas said.

Ball scored unassisted at 8:38 of the fourth and with the Cougars adding the extra attacker, Waltman fired the ball the length of the field for his first goal of his career to make it 7-4 with 2:05 left. Ball finished off the rout with his second with 28 seconds left.

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