Comets Streak Past Sockers 8-6
Rian Marques netted a hat trick with two assists as the Kansas City Comets overwhelmed the San Diego Sockers on Sunday afternoon by a final score of 8-6. The Comets (11-6-4, 35 points) take the weekend home-and-home series with four standings points to the two earned by San Diego in Saturday night’s 6-5 overtime win. The road team has won in all three meetings so far this season.
“Just not good enough,” said head coach Phil Salvagio after the match, “You can’t use travel as an excuse or tired legs. It wasn’t good enough.
A late Sockers comeback in the fourth made the score line more respectable than the run of play would have suggested, as San Diego (13-6-2, 38 points) netted three goals with a sixth attacker in the fourth quarter, including two in the waning minutes. The loss, the Sockers’ eighth of the season, marks the most losses in a single season in modern franchise history (2009-present). The previous high for losses was in 2015-16, when San Diego went 13-7.
After playing in Kansas City on Saturday night, each club negotiated their own route to California in the morning, with the Comets boarding a direct commercial flight to San Diego, while the Sockers laid over in Las Vegas and arrived closer to 11:00am for the 4:00pm match. With both teams groggy from their long morning, the start of the match was unsurprisingly fitful at first, with missed communication, missed chances, and mistakes abounding. Kansas City took the lead at 9:50 when top scorer Rian Marques crashed in on pressure against San Diego defender Stefan Mijatovic and cleanly stole the ball from him against the wall. Mijatovic fell to the turf as Marques stepped forward one-on-one with the keeper, slotting a hard shot over Pardo’s shoulder and into the high-side net for his 24th goal of the season and a 1-0 lead.
“We had tired legs, they were tired too, but they came with energy,” said Pardo, “They could be a bit younger than us, but I think it was a matter of a bit more fight. You can’t have excuses because the other team is (traveling) too. Tonight, it just wasn’t there for us.”
The next Sockers mistake was more mental than physical, as Tavoy Morgan put his head down and headed to the bench for a change as his man, Chase Peterson of Kansas City, spotted what was happening and streaked toward net. By the time Moustapha Gueye could change on for Morgan, Peterson was away free into the corner, and his wall pass found Zach Reget in the middle for a simple goal at 13:15 and a 2-0 Comets lead.
However, the last mistake of the quarter belonged to the visitors. With ten seconds left, San Diego defender Cesar Cerda sent a high pass to the middle, and Nilton de Andrade lifted it on downfield toward Tavoy Morgan. Peterson chased and tried to head the ball away but missed, and Tavoy watched the ball drop, timed the bounce, and fired a lethal volley into the top net with 0.7 seconds left on the clock. What had been a fairly dominant frame instead was a 2-1 score after fifteen minutes.
The Sockers gave themselves multiple opportunities to get back into the game in the second quarter, but found themselves instead falling behind further. San Diego won a power play and shootout opportunity in the opening minute, but Nick Perera’s attempt to walk around goalkeeper Phillip Ejimadu ( 14-of-20 saves) came up empty as he hesitated a beat too long and then shot wide of the net. The Sockers failed to score on the power play, then conceded on a corner kick tipped in the crease from Marques to Lucas Souza at 9:30 for a 3-1 lead. San D
A second Kansas City blue card, shown to defender Nacho Flores at 8:54, gave the Sockers another power play chance, and they converted on a slick pass from Tavoy Morgan to Sebastian Mendez for his 14th goal of the year at 9:30, cutting the lead to 3-2. However, just a minute later, a Sockers set piece evaporated on a blocked shot, and the ball hopped to Comets midfielder David Stankovic, who ran up the field across two lines and then turned Mijatovic, freeing up an open path to the middle of the goal and a calm conversion at 10:45 for a 4-2 Kansas City lead. The Comets then packed in for the rest of the quarter, blocking a quartet of shots in the final minute to preserve their two-goal lead into the halftime locker room.
The third quarter was a Comets masterclass, and an unnervingly familiar San Diego home collapse. Two defenders who rarely score, Guerrero Pino and DeBray Hollimon, teamed up on a goal that could have been scored by Preki and Veee, with Pino’s running back-heel pass setting up the crashing Hollimon on right wing for a slam dunk goal at 3:39. The Sockers committed two penalties and saw their league-leading penalty kill unit torched for two simple goals, scored by Marques and Flores at 4:55 and 9:57. By the time the dust had settled, the Comets were leading 7-2. Sebastian Mendez was shown one of the two blue cards in the quarter, his seventh penalty point of the season, leading to an automatic suspension for San Diego’s next match.
To their credit, the Sockers kept playing and drew the final score back toward respectability, as Morgan netted late in the third quarter at 10:46, and Drew Ruggles manned a dangerous sixth attacker unit, which generated three goals in the final twelve minutes. Ruggles scored, and Nilton de Andrade netted a late brace with goals at 11:05 and 14:55 to set the final score. In between, Marques finished his hat trick on a wicked half-volley from Flores at 1:55. However, the loss was never in doubt after Kansas City’s third quarter outburst, dropping San Diego’s home record to another modern franchise low, .500 at 5-3-2.
With San Diego now trailing Baltimore by both a point and a regulation win, and no more matches in hand, the path to a MASL Shield is growing tenuous, while the chance of dropping out of a top-two position (and a first-round playoff bye) is becoming stark and real. Salvagio was asked after the final whistle how many of his final three matches the team will have to win.
“All three, all three, all three,” was his answer.
The first of the three is a Sunday 4:00pm contest against the St. Louis Ambush. Sockers W, the new women’s team, will make their franchise debut at 1:45 that day, taking on Empire W. One ticket is good for both matches, and can be purchased at frontwavearena.com or sdsockers.com.