The St. Louis Ambush closed out the 2021 regular season with a win, defeating the Dallas Sidekicks 6-3 at Axius Field at the Family Arena Friday night. The victory gives the Ambush an 8-7 record on the regular season, while Dallas drops to 1-8 with two regular season games remaining on their schedule.
The Ambush struck first on a Corey Adamson goal in the fourth minute of the opening stanza. Just over six minutes later, St. Louis went up 2-0 when Patrick Thompson took a shot that a Dallas player attempted to block, but inadvertently deflected the ball into the net. Stefan Mijatovic scored for the Ambush at 13:14 to give the home team a 3-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.
St. Louis increased their lead to 4-0 when Jerjer Gibson took a shot that Dallas goalkeeper Juan Gamboa stopped, but didn’t gain control of the ball, which found the foot of Vadim Cojocov, who put it in the back of the net at 2:10 of the second period. Dallas answered 16 seconds later when Julio Varela was able to get a shot by Ambush goalkeeper Paulo to make it a 4-1 game. At the 10 minute mark, Adamson took a shot that came off the post to a waiting Jerjer Gibson, who tapped it in for a 5-1 Ambush lead that would stay in place through halftime.
The third quarter remained scoreless until the final half minute, when Felipe De Sousa drew Paulo out of the goal, sidestepped him, and put the ball in the open net to make the score 5-2 heading into the final quarter.
The Ambush increased their lead to 6-2 when Felipe Silva took a pass from Patrick Thompson and shot it over Gamboa’s left shoulder in the seventh minute of the fourth quarter. The Sidekicks whittled away at the Ambush lead when Freddy Moojen was able to beat Paulo at 10:37 to make the score 6-3. No further scoring occurred, but things got heated on the field more than once as frustration from the losing side became evident.
Dallas outshot St. Louis 36-30 in the match. Ambush goalkeeper Paulo made 15 saves in 18 save opportunities (.833 Sv%), while Gamboa saved 16 in 22 chances (.727 Sv%).
With their regular season in the books, the Ambush will wait for other MASL teams to wrap up their seasons to determine seeding for the playoffs. The Ambush will host at least one home game in the first round, expected to be the weekend of March 26-28. Dates and times will be finalized as the season concludes across the league and will be announced soon.
Tickets for the upcoming playoff game(s) will be available at the Family Arena box office or online at ticketmaster.com. All Ambush games can also be viewed online at Facebook Live PPV.
