Team Play key to Comets victory against Sockers Friday night

by Bill Althaus

Coach Stefan Stokic stresses the importance of team play when his Kansas City Comets take on an MASL opponent, and his team delivered Friday night at Cable Dahmer Arena as goalkeeper Phillip Ejimadu, who made 16 saves, and Chad Vandergriffe, who had six blocks, anchored the defense and eight different players scored goals in a dramatic 9-6 victory over the San Diego Sockers.

The 10-2 Sockers came into the game riding a 10-game winning streak, that included a 7-4 home victory against the Comets earlier this season.

But the Comets scored seven goals in the second half to improve to 9-1-2.

"This is why we do what we do - for moments like this," Stokic said, as fans ringed the field - cheering, taking photos, getting autographs and celebrating the statement victory.

"I am always confident in our team, and while we did not have a good first half (trailing 3-2 without scoring a goal in the second quarter), we talked about some things at halftime and came out and played a much better second half."

The Sockers struck first at 3:49 the contest when defender Drew Ruggles cut the ball to his left and sent it to the top corner. The Comets answered when Christian Anderaos pounced on a loose ball to level the score before Ramone Palmer sent a perfect header to Zach Reget, whose score gave Kansas City a 2-1 lead.

Just 31 seconds into the second quarter a Christian Gutierrez goal timed the scored and the Sockers took a 3-1 lead on Ruggles' second goal of the night.

The Comets seemed like a new team when they came out of the halftime locker room.

The third quarter was fast and furious as Rian Marques tied the game 3-3 just 1:01 into the quarter on a power-play opportunity.

Palmer then scored his first goal of the game on a second power-play opportunity at the 2:11 mark. Less than two minutes followed before Palmer scored his second goal, giving Kansas City a 5-3 lead.

"This is a statement win," Palmer said. "We know it's going to be a tough game when we play San Diego, but we are a tough team and we have beaten some of the best teams in the league this season.

"We beat Chihuahua, who beat us in the MASL championship last season, and that was the first time we'd beaten them in the history of our team. We lose at San Diego, then come home and beat them tonight. Stef has us prepared for the second half, he fired us up at halftime and we knew we had the talent to come out and win the game in the second half."

Kraig Chiles' deflected effort off a Comets player, made it 5-4 going into the final 15 minutes of play.

The Comets re-established their dominance in the fourth when Lesia Thetsane scored his seventh of the season, coming off a restart from Nacho Flores. Michael Lenis scored his first goal of the season and Leo Acosta took his own rebound off the boards and scored to make it 8-4.

San Diego's Charlie Gonzalez scored a sixth-attacker goal, but  Henry Ramirez followed with a long, empty net goal to make it 9-5. The Sockers added on final goal, but it was too little, too late.

The Comets now move into a two-way tie for second with the Baltimore Blast as each team has 29 points.

"With Chad and our defense and so many guys contributing offensively, this is a win we needed to continue our run at making the championships games again this season," said Ejimadu, who lowered his MASL-best goals against average to 4.14.

"You look around here and everyone is so happy - my teammates, our coaches, the fans, this is a great moment."