INDEPENDENCE, Mo.– A flurry of first quarter goals proved too much for the St. Louis Ambush to overcome on Friday night, falling to the Missouri Comets 7-5. The Missouri Comets scored four goals in the first 8 minutes of the contest to remain undefeated at 13-0 and drop the Ambush to 3-8.
The Ambush traveled west with some significant roster changes. During St. Louis’ previous game against the Wichita B-52s, goalkeeper Greg Crook went down with a knee injury when he collided with a Wichita player but toughed it out and stayed in the game. This week he became the second Ambush player to be put on the season-ending IR with an ACL injury.  Crook is fourth in the league in save percentage and was awarded player of the week honors last month, so backup goalie Alan Hagerty has some big shoes to fill the rest of the way.
The Comets wasted no time in testing Hagerty in his first time out. Captain Vahid Assadpour scored off an assist from Leo Gibson less than a minute into the match. Goals from Brian Harris and Andrew Braithwaite came less than 30 seconds apart. The bleeding finally was stopped after Assadpour returned the favor and assisted on a Gibson goal.
For the rest of the first quarter, the Ambush and Hagerty seemed to settle down and wrestle back some of the momentum. With 13 Comet shots on goal in the first the damage could have been significantly worse.
The Ambush put their stamp on the second quarter as fast as the Comets put theirs on the first. 54 seconds in the Comets’ backup goalie, Stephen Patterson, starting for their own injured star, made a mistake. A bad clearance pass was collected by Jeff DiMaria who dished it to Chris Mattingly making a run for the goal to get the Ambush on the board. Adnan Gabelijic tapped one home along the goal line to cut Missouri’s lead to 4-2 with four minutes left in the first half. On the defensive side, St. Louis held the Comets to just three shots on goal in the quarter.
The third quarter was a slugfest as both teams fought for control of the game. Missouri defender Alain Matingou broke into the open field shook an Ambush defender and scored the only goal of the period to put the Comets ahead 5-2.
Ross MacGregor answered in the fourth quarter with a left-footed shot off a restart. Assadpour left Hagerty flat-footed with a laser from beyond the arc that flew just under the crossbar to put the Comets back up 6-3.
The Ambush made a last gasp with the sixth attacker with less than five minutes to go. Blake Ordell drove a ball low and hard and found the bottom right corner to cut the deficit to two. However, that would be as close as St. Louis would get. With under a minute left, Assadpour got his hat trick off another assist from Gibson when they went two-on-one with the sixth attacker back pedaling to the net.
Not to be outdone, Kory Dowell, who he has been battling for the team lead in goals with Ordell all season, tied his teammate at 8 goals with a patented left-footed blast out of the reach of Stephenson and capped the scoring at 7-5 with 30 seconds left.
Gordy Gurson the leading MASL goal scorer was kept largely quiet on his first night with the Ambush. Gurson was unable to add to his 36 goals on either of his two shots. Gurson was acquired for cash from the Seattle Impact earlier this week after the Ambush traded Stefan St. Louis to the Milwaukee Wave for some of the cash they presumably sent to Seattle.
In an odd turn, the Seattle Impact folded as a franchise this week after the deal. Owner, player, coach Dion Earl sold the franchise rights to the Tacoma Stars, who will join the MASL and take over the rest of the Impact’s scheduled games including a Feb. 21 date at the Family Arena.
The Impact had a rocky start to their MASL tenure. Earl was accused of sexual assault by some of the dance team before the season, and 22 players left the team because of it. Attendance dropped this season as a result.
The Ambush are back in action tonight at 7:05 pm for their second game in Wichita in a week. The B-52s beat the Ambush 7-5 in their last meeting. The game will be live streamed like all MASL games and can be seen here. I highly recommend checking it out. The Wichita crew that calls the B-52s’ games is a good listen.
(Photo Credit: Missouri Comets/Twitter)
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