Three-game trip critical for Metros

It is make-or-break time for the Nashville Metros in their 2006 soccer campaign.

The Metros (1-4-3) kick off the second half of their Premier Development League season with a brutal 1,100-mile, three-games-in-three-nights road trip.

Three straight wins would vault the Metros back into contention. Three straight losses would mathematically eliminate them from the playoffs.

The trip begins tonight in Raleigh, N.C., against the Elite. The last-place Metros can vault over Raleigh (2-6-2) in the PDL South Atlantic Division with a win. The two teams have played two ties so far this season, 0-0 at Raleigh last month and 3-3 last Saturday in Murfreesboro.

After the game, the Metros travel over to Greensboro, N.C. where they take on the unbeaten Carolina Dynamo (10-0-1), one of only two remaining undefeated teams left in the 59-team PDL. Carolina beat Nashville 6-1 in the season opener May 5, but barely held on for a 2-1 win May 20 at Ezell Park in what may have been the Metros