Comets Beat Wave for First Win

After a disappointing result at home in their opener against Cedar Rapids last week, the Comets took care of business on Friday night against the Milwaukee Wave. A very different Wave side from the team that the Comets have seen the last few years hung with the Comet s early on, but in the end the Comets veteran players stepped up to push the Comets to an 11-4 win.

Things kicked off quickly with the Wave getting a blue card in the first nine seconds of the game after Andre Hayne came in “studs up” on Stephen Paterson as he tried to clear a ball away. The Comets couldn’t capitalize on the power play, hitting the post once, but controlled the first quarter. It wasn’t until late in the quarter though that the Comets finally took advantage of the possession and scored two goals in a 21 second span. The first an own goal created to Milan Ivanovic as Hans Denissen headed a ball into his own net. Seconds later the Comets pinned the Wave in their own end and Nacho Flores picked out Brian Harris who put the ball into the empty net as Rafael Dias had come off his line.

The second quarter saw the Comets extend their lead scoring here more times, while the Wave was able to get onto the board. Just under six minutes in Ramone Palmer started the scoring after bouncing on a loose ball after a heavy touch. The ball got wide to Guerrero Pino who played the ball back across field to a streaking Palmer who scored.  Just over a minute later John Sosa got on the board after being played into the middle by Leo Gibson he flicked the ball up over Dias and smashed it into the empty net to make it 4-0. Shortly after the teams traded power play goals with the Wave scoring through Hayne and Gibson getting his first goal of the night pouncing on a rebound spilled by Dias.

The Comets quickly extended their four goal lead to five, just 50 seconds in; Gibson played a cross to Palmer that the Jamaican put home to make 6-1. From there the Wave and Comets traded goals with Denissen making up for his early own goal taking advantage of the Comets failure to clear the ball out of their own box.  Shortly after that though Gibson scored his second goal of the night working a nice give and go with Vahid Assadpour before firing a ball into the net to put the Comets back up by five at 7-2. Late in the quarter though the Wave cut the lead back to four on a counter attack as Paterson came up with a good save on the first effort but on the rebound Andrew Wiedabach’s shot was directed in by Ian Bennett to make it 7-3 after three quarters.

Two minutes into the fourth quarter the Wave were able to cut the lead to just three when Drew Ruggles blasted a ball past Paterson. From there though the Comets ran away from the Wave, scoring the final four goals to put the Wave away for an 11-4 win. Assadpour got the scoring started just over six minutes into the quarter working a long give and go with Harris before calmly shooting the ball under Dias. A minute later, Gibson became provider, racing down the side and playing the ball into the middle for Bryan Perez who put the ball into the far corner. The pressure continued as Gibson got his hattrick on the power play toe poking a shot from the top of the arc into the corner. Two minutes later the Comets finished the game off with another goal by Gibson as he held off a challenge from Ruggles to fire a shot past Dias to make it 11-4.