ST. CHARLES, Mo.— The St. Louis Ambush got their first win in the Family Arena this season by beating the Detroit Waza Flo, 7-6. A furiously-paced and high-scoring second half was capped by a tie-breaking goal by forward Odaine Sinclair to run the Ambush’s record to 2-4 on the year.
The first half of Saturday night’s contest was a familiar and frustrating sight for Ambush fans. Detroit (3-5) led at the break 2-0, but everyone in the building knew the Ambush were the better team for 30 minutes. St. Louis had the Waza Flo pinned in their own end, dominating possession and outshooting them 19-7. However, it was two miscues by the Ambush that made up the difference in the score. In the first quarter, Daniel Mattos took a ball off the foot of Blake Ordell in the Ambush’s own end and deposited it in the corner of the net. In the second, Ambush keeper Greg Crook’s clearance was intercepted at midfield by Nik Djokic and driven into the back of the net by Drew Ducker as Crook raced back to his position.
In the second half, the Ambush came out on fire, scoring four unanswered goals. Manny Forbes got the home team on the board with a header after the ball caromed unexpectedly off the boards. The Ambush’s leading goal scorer Kory Dowell ripped one home from the right side. Forward Stefan St. Louis then capitalized on a Detroit blunder to catch the Waza Flo keeper out of the box. Finally, Richard Schmermund knocked a free kick in off a Detroit defender to give the Ambush a 4-2 lead.
It would not be a walkover for St. Louis, as Detroit’s Mattos scored on a power play and then he fought off a defender and scored off Crook’s hands for the hat trick.
St. Louis and Detroit traded goals to end the third quarter, with Blake Ordell making up for his first quarter miscue with a blast into the upper 90 off a restart and Djokic getting a tip in goal to go with his assist.
The Ambush started the fourth quarter on the power play looking to break the 5-5 tie. The Detroit goalkeeper Matteo Zani errantly threw the ball into the stands setting up a free kick. However, the shot was off the mark and resulted in a long rebound. Detroit’s Alargie Jobe gathered the rebound beat the Ambush back and scored the short-handed go-ahead goal. Jobe then proceeded to take his shirt off and taunt the crowd, which was met with an appropriate chorus of boos from the 6,000+ in attendance.
In many games this season a disheartening goal like that has been the end for St. Louis, but not on this night. Still on the power play, Dowell got his second goal of the game just eight seconds later to tie it up once again at 6.
Sinclair’s game winner would come three minutes later when he got a pass from MacGregor into space around the top of the arc and he buried it.
10 minutes, multiple free kicks, countless near-misses, and some big saves by Crook later, the Ambush emerged victorious with their second win of the season.
St. Louis has next weekend off but will return to action in two weeks with a road-home back-to-back, as they travel to Chicago to face the Mustangs again Dec. 27 and then are home Dec. 28 to face the San Diego Sockers.
Idle Thoughts
– Detroit probably has the strangest name of any professional franchise in the country. For you inquisitive souls out there, according to the media guide, Waza means “good technique” in Japanese and “to think clearly” in Swahili. I’m not sure either of these make it a good name for a team, but I do like the MASL’s commitment to teams not ending their nicknames with an “s.”
– Rules and the understanding of them continues to be a problem in this league. There were once again multiple prolonged stoppages to argue over the rules. Not the call on the field, but the application of the rule. The biggest confusion tonight seemed to be over how long five minutes was (the amount of time a person given a yellow card is sentenced to spend in the penalty box), and if the Waza Flo delegate had indeed served his full five-minute term. This is obviously a new league so things like this are to be expected, but with one division playing by a completely different scoring system than the rest of the league and a league vote changing the shootout/penalty rules two weeks into the season, the league is definitely making it tougher on themselves than it should be.
– It was nice to see a little fire from the crowd when the Waza Flo player took his shirt off and taunted them. Soccer is supposed to have some of that. It doesn’t feel like the games really matter unless the fans care. You could feel the energy in the arena pick up.
-St. Louis appears to be in one of the tougher divisions if not the toughest, with two defending champs and a defending regular season champ occupying the Central division. I think tonight proved that Detroit would not have their three wins if they played the Ambush schedule thus far.
-The Ambush wore black tonight for the first time and it was a good look. It did traumatize me a bit because the last time an Andrew Haines team wore black instead of teal the undefeated, pro indoor football team the St. Louis Attack lost in the X-League Championship game.
(Photos by Tim Kaiser)
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Follow me on Twitter @TimJKaiser for St. Louis Ambush in-game updates and general St. Louis sports babble.
