ST. CHARLES, Mo. – The St. Louis Ambush relinquished a four-goal lead and, ultimately, a victory, as the Wichita B-52s came from behind to win 9-8 in overtime Saturday night at the Family Arena. The Ambush carried a 7-3 lead into the fourth quarter, but a furious comeback allowed for a spectacular Wichita game-winning, overtime goal.
The game went to halftime tied 3-3, but the Ambush were dominating the game to that point. They led in total shots 25-19, but demolished the B-52s in shots on goal, 19-7. In the third quarter that discrepancy would finally rear its head.
The Ambush came out of halftime poised to blow the B-52s out of the arena. At the 11:58 mark, Elvir Kafedzic sent a restart across the box to a wide open Adnan Gabeljic to break the tie and start the Ambush run. Corey Adamson pounced on a Korey Dowell rocket off a restart after it hit the Wichita goalie in the hands to push the lead to 5-3. Gabeljic next got his second of the game by athletically deflecting in a shoulder high pass from Dowell to double up Wichita. Kafedzic’s second goal of the game—his second consecutive two-goal game — made it 7-3 with 4:43 left to play in the third quarter after Odaine Sinclair was able to fight off two Wichita defenders in the corner to get him the ball alone in the box.
The Ambush left the quarter with good feelings about getting their first back-to-back wins of the season a ridiculous 28-9 advantage in shots on goal for the game and a four-goal lead. The only perceivable flaw with the quarter was two unsuccessful power plays. At the time, they just felt like something a coach could point to in Monday’s practice for the team to work on before the next game.
For a team that looked soundly beaten, Wichita got off the mat with a fury in the opening minute of the fourth quarter. It took them just 44 seconds to start their improbable comeback. Alex Moseley scored his second goal of the game off a setup from Kevin Tan Eyck to make it 7-4.
If the Ambush needed an omen from the refs the tide was turning, it came in the form of an ambiguous yellow card issued to David Paul. The card came after Kafedzic went down with a shot to the face, but Wichita was only called for a foul and not a card, so a discussion ensued. It did not appear to get heated, but Crew Chief Rich Grady put Paul in the book with the all-encompassing “dissent.”
Moseley deflected in a 50-foot pass from Carlos Filho for his hat trick and to cut the lead to just 7-5 with just over 10 minutes to play.
Ambush defender Chad Vandegriffe reached out and grabbed some jersey of the speedy Abel Sebele around the 7:20 mark, an automatic blue card and two-minute penalty. The ref allowed for the advantage and did not blow the whistle until St. Louis had gotten the ball and was going the other way. This of course is the right call, but to a stadium wearing teal-colored glasses who might not have seen the initial foul or thought it was a no-call due to the “play-on,” it was an infuriating aid to the Wichita comeback.
The B-52s wasted little time in capitalizing on their man advantage. Kevin Tan Eyck took a ball out of mid-air in the box drove it into the ground and it bounced over the diving Ambush goalie, Kevin Corby to cut the lead to 7-6.
The only thing that did go the Ambush way was a goal deflected into their own net by B-52s defender Tico Rodriguez, but the goal that pushed the lead back to 8-6 was credited to Blake Ordell, who sent it across the goal mouth from the corner.
The momentum pendulum swung back toward the Wichita side less than a minute later though when Vandegriffe was hit with his second blue card of the period with 5:52 to play. Vandegriffe was definitely late with the challenge and caught the Wichita player with his foot, but it was not malicious or dangerous enough to warrant a card. He went in standing up and not with a slide tackle after all.
Nonetheless, Wichita capitalized yet again. Ten Eyck corralled and sent in a loose ball after it went just wide of the goal for his hat trick and second power play goal of the game with 4:13 remaining in regulation. Corby clearly frustrated after relinquishing his fourth goal of the quarter shouted an expletive at the referee and was awarded a yellow card of his own, though he did not serve the misconduct penalty himself.
Trailing 8-7 with 2:12 left, Wichita put a sixth attacker on the field. The Ambush withstood an onslaught from Wichita until a shot mercifully went out of play with 25 seconds left, and the Ambush called a timeout. (The video picks up from there.)
The B-52s made one last run after getting the ball back. Sebele eventually got the ball on the left side going in from the 50-foot line. He was able to get by his defender and get a shot off the wall near post. The ball caromed of the wall and a few players in the box and somehow ended up back at Sebel’s feet. He blasted a shot past Corby with just one-tenth of a second (00:00.1) left showing on the clock for Wichita’s fifth– and biggest– goal of the fourth quarter. The clocks on the video boards above the “end zones” at either end of the Family Arena actually showed 00:00, but that is because those clocks do not show tenths of a second.
The different times shown on the clocks and the general frustration with the officials at that point drew strong words and passionate arguments from the Ambush bench. Ultimately after some discussion with the clock operator and the other officials it was confirmed a goal and an 8-8 tie. The Ambush being hurried to go back out to play the last 0.1 seconds of regulation only further exacerbated the situation. Before overtime started the Ambush bench was shown a yellow card, specifically owner Andrew Haines. (This yellow was never entered into the online stats. I don’t know if it is because they did not see it from press row because it was between quarters or if the referee never actually entered it into the book, but I definitely saw him present the card in front of Haines who was standing next to the Ambush bench.)
Teams rarely come back to play well in overtime after relinquishing a large lead, and the Ambush were not the exception. Moseley scored his fourth goal of the game on a bicycle kick off a wall pass just 1:04 into the 10-minute sudden-death period.
The fireworks did not stop though because as the B-52s celebrated the Ambush continued to voice their displeasure with the refs. Head Coach Daryl Doran and Haines both walked across the field to give animated performance reviews of Grady and his fellow referees.
Haines, always one to stick up for his team —most famously, before last night, at last year’s X-Bowl, he squirted water at an official— did not limit his critiques of the officiating to the real, non-virtual world.
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The Ambush definitely were hurt more by the officials’ calls than their opponents were. Wichita was 2-2 on the power play, while St. Louis was 0-3. In the nightmare of the fourth quarter, St. Louis was whistled for nine infractions while Wichita was only called for four fouls. The Ambush lost the penalty box battle 14 minutes to 6. All 14 minutes of St. Louis’ sentences to the sin bin came in the fourth.
To be fair the B-52s definitely turned up the pressure in that fourth quarter. They outshot St. Louis 23-5 and 16-5 with shots on goal in the quarter.
The loss drops the Ambush to 4-10, 4.5 games back of Milwaukee for the final playoff spot and 4 games back of Wichita for fourth in the Central division with six games to play.
St. Louis is back in action next weekend for a two game road trip: Harrisburg on Friday and Detroit Saturday.
Watch the Full Game on-demand on ESPN 3.
(Photo by Tim Kaiser)
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