Comets Top Silver Knights Late

The Kansas City Comets continued their good run of form on Friday night with a come from behind win over the visiting Syracuse Silver Knights. The Comets, winners of three straight were trying to continue the run at home where they lost their last encounter to the Florida Tropics.

Alain Matingou picked up right where he left off last week when he scored a hattrick in San Diego as he set up the Comets first goal just over two minutes into the game, deflecting a clearance by the Knights keeper and pulling it back into the path of Leo Gibson who fired the shot off the post and in to put the Comets up 1-0. That was the only goal either team scored in the first period as the Knights kept the Comets at bay the rest of the quarter. This continued into the second as neither team found another goal until there were less than five minutes left as Stefanos Stamoulacatos fired in a shot after Bo Jelovac fired a pass off the wall right into his path. The tie game only lasted two minutes as Matingou received a ball outside the yellow line, raced in and fired a shot inside the far post to make it 2-1 Comets. Before half time though the Knights restored parity as Jelovac chipped a cross into the middle over Stephen Paterson and into the net.

The Knights came out as the stronger side in the second half and were rewarded for it five minutes in as Jake Schindler pounced on a loose ball that Paterson didn't hold after it came off the wall. Just over a minute later, the Knights doubled their lead as a long ball over the top found Jerjer Gibson who poked the ball past an on coming Paterson and into the net to make it 4-2. The Knights carried the lead into the fourth quarter where they added another goal to their lead just over half way through the period as Patrick Thompson beat Paterson from a tight angle as the Comets looked all out of sorts defensively without the suspended Robert Palmer. Down three goals with just over seven minutes left, the Comets went with the sixth attacker to try to get the offense back going. The move paid off immediately as the Comets were able to spread the field and after a Gibson shot was blocked, the rebound fell to Vahid Assadpour who blasted a shot from distance that went into the corner. Shortly after the goal the Knights got called for having too many men on the field, giving the Comets a power play and another chance to cut into the lead. On the power play the Comets had a number of efforts blocked by the Knights but shortly before the power play expired, Assadpour picked out Gibson at the top of the box. He touched the ball around an on rushing defender and fired it into the net to get the Comets within a goal. The Comets again went to the sixth attacker with less than four minutes left trying to find a way to tie the game up. With just over two minutes left the Comets were able to find the equalizer as a cross went all the way through the box to Bryan Perez on the back post. Perez had time to take a touch, look up and blast a shot over Andrew Coughlin and into the net to tie the game at 5-5. With the game tied, the Comets were able to bring out their high pressure more against the Knights, pressuring them in their own half of the field when they had the ball causing some turnovers. Off one of those giveaways the Comets scored what proved to be the game winner. John Sosa played a long ball into the corner where Gibson was able to bring the ball down, turn and square the ball across to Brian Harris who came running in, took a touch and fired it into the top corner to make it 6-5 to the Comets. The win has the Comets keep pace with the Cedar Rapids Rampage, who they're tied with for first place in the Central Division.