Nick Perera scored three goals, leading the Tacoma Stars past the Turlock Express 12-2 in a seasoning-opening Major Arena Soccer League match at the accesso ShoWare Center in front of 3,437 fans Saturday night.<\/p>\n
The Stars’ Philip Lund opened the scoring with two goals in less than two minutes in the first quarter before James Riley picked up his first MASL goal with 3:56 left in the first.<\/p>\n
The Stars notched four more goals in the second quarter to lead the Express 7-0 at the half.<\/p>\n
Adam West and Chase Hanson scored less than a minute apart and then Perera nailed home his first with 6:40 left in the opening half. Tacoma got its seventh off the foot of Joey Gjertsen with six seconds remaining.<\/p>\n
The second half started with two more Stars markers. The first was from Jamael Cox and Matt Clare’s first as a Star with 7:59 left in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Turlock got on the board when Ernesto Luna scored his first goal with the Express less than a minute after Clare’s goal.<\/p>\n
Perera punched in his second goal of the night to opening scoring in the fourth with 11:30 left to play. Just 16 seconds later, Luna struck again for Turlock to make the score 10-2 with 11:14 to go. Perera completed his hat trick at the 9:13 mark and Vince McCluskey closed out the scoring with 5:07 remaining in the game.<\/p>\n
For the match, the Stars outshot Turlock 27-4 and were led by Nick Perera’s three goals.<\/p>\n
The Stars are back in action this Friday, Dec. 7 when the Dallas Sidekicks invade the ShoWare Center.<\/p>\n