Comets comeback falls short to Wave

INDEPENDENCE, MO — The Kansas City Comets fell to a third consecutive defeat on Sunday, falling to the Milwaukee Wave 8-7 as their fourth-quarter comeback bid fell just short at Cable Dahmer Arena.

The fourth quarter quickly turned into horror, when the Comets saw their one-goal deficit turn to three. Still, the Comets kept belief and rallied to come within a score, with the equalizer coming inches away, but a flurry of late chances were denied.

The first half was back-and-forth, with Nacho Flores opening the scoring 5:46 into the first quarter on a power play. Alex Steinwascher supplied Milwaukee’s answer, a pattern that was repeated when Zach Reget scored his first of the game for Max Ferdinand to score the equalizer.

The Comets went ahead 3-2 when Michael Lenis scored on a feed from Rian Marques. Milwaukee replied with a pair of scores from Mario Alvarez and Alex Sanchez, giving the visitors a 4-3 lead going into halftime.

Reget, the leading scorer in the MASL, continued to be a spark for the Comets by adding his second of the night to tie the game at 4-4 before the Wave opened up a two-goal advantage with Sanchez and Alvarez bagging a brace. The Comets got back into the game late in the period, when Lesia Thetsane scored his fifth of the season to cut the deficit down to 6-5.

Milwaukee took its largest lead of the night in the fourth quarter, when Javier Steinwascher scored twice on assists from Alex Steinwascher to put the Wave up 8-5 within the first six minutes of the fourth. Reget had the Comets’ response 30 seconds later to complete his hat trick and give the Comets some hope, which was followed by Marques scoring to get the Comets within a goal with 7:08 remaining.

The Comets found some big opportunities, but those chances were denied as Milwaukee goalkeeper William Banahene made four critical saves in the final minutes of the contest.

A third consecutive defeat for the Comets — first regulation defeat of the stretch — drops them to a record of 6-3-2 on 16 points in first place. The Wave improve to 5-1-2, sitting third on 16 points.

Despite the defeat, the Comets still took some positives from the result. They kept out of the penalty box, while converting on both power play opportunities in the first quarter.

“We had a lot of good moments,” Comets head coach Stefan Stokic said. “I felt like we should have won this game. We’re giving away too many goals. It’s another game where we gave up eight goals. It’s something we need to fix very soon or it’s going to be a long season.”

A pregame injury to Phillip Ejimadu forced Julio Coronado into his third start this season. Ejimadu made a brief appearance when Coronado picked up a second-half injury, later returning to the contest.

The Comets conclude their three-game homestand next weekend when they welcome Danny Waltman and the Tacoma Stars. Get your tickets now at kccomets.com/tickets.

SCORING SUMMARY

GAME STATS

Attendance - 3,310