The Missouri Comets Coach Kim Roentved wanted to make a statement against Baltimore and in his own words, " It was a statement on top of a statement."
With a scoreless first quarter, the Comets and Blast took awhile to get on the scoreboard but once they did, it was a flurry of goals. Ricardinho and Mike Deasel staked out a five point lead for the Blast with a pair of goals just 25 seconds apart.
The Comets response was kicked off when Assadpour answered less than two minutes later. Bato Radoncic, Neto and Assadpour's second goal capped off the Comets four goal response. Those goals came in just a minute and 25 seconds span to give the Comets a 9-5 lead at halftime.
The third quarter was relatively even with Lucas Rodriguez scoring a 3 pointer and the Blast picking up a pair of 2 point goals.
The Comets separated themselves even further from the Blast in the fourth with goals from Byron Alvarez and Rodriguez . An empty net goal for Geison extended his scoring streak to 17 games. When the last buzzer sounded, the final score was 18-9 and Baltimore looked a little shocked.
"Milwaukee and Baltimore, coming down the stretch those are the teams you need to beat," Coach Roentved explain. "You've got to go out and show you can play with the big boys if you want to win something. That's where we are at right now. If you want trophies, those are the teams you've got to beat."
The Comets have won their last three games (including a 33 point outburst against Syracuse) and seem to be playing their best soccer now. "It has been a build up from the beginning. I would like to think that we are peaking at the right time," Roentved stated.
"It doesn't matter what you do in the season and with all due respect to Milwaukee and Baltimore records, the standings right now don't mean anything for me. What means anything right now is the way we are playing."
While Coach Roentved was understandably pleased, Baltimore Blast Coach Danny Kelly was not happy with his team's performance. "We didn't play well. The key to our success this season so far has been our team defense. Tonight was not good enough, our defense was nowhere near where it needs to be to win a playoff game, to compete for a championship. It's got to be better. Period."
The Blast has already clinched a playoff spot and won the east but they have also lost their last two games. With just four games to play, Coach Kelly realizes it is not a good trend. "It does concern me, every game we step on the field we try to win. If the mindset is that we've already clinched a playoff spot and we can take our foot off the pedal, if that's in their heads then they need to get it out very quickly because we need to play a whole lot better if we are going to do anything come playoff time."
The Comets are in second place in the Central Division and will secure a playoff spot with one more win or the next loss by the Wichita Wings.
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