COMETS TAKE OUT STARS 9-2 AT T-MOBILE CENTER

KANSAS CITY, MO. – In the first professional indoor soccer game played in downtown Kansas City in over 10 years, the Comets (8-1) got four goals from Leo Gibson and sailed to a 9-2 win over the visiting Tacoma Stars (2-4) in front of 6,011 fans at T-Mobile Center Saturday night. Gibson finished with five points on the night.

The Comets looked to jump on the Stars early and that’s what they did just 33 seconds into the game on the eighth goal of the season by Rian Marques, with an assist by John Sosa.

The second goal of the game was a special one. Matt Lewis found Gibson for the first of his three first half goals and that was MASL career regular-season goal number 200 for the Comets player-head coach. After a quick stoppage of play to present Gibson with the game ball, the Comets were up 2-0 with 1:07 left in the opening quarter.

Ray Lee was issued a blue card for dangerous play just before the quarter break, but the Comets penalty killers kept the shut-out intact. The next card went to Tacoma’s DeBray Hollimon for holding as he pulled a player down and prevented a scoring chance but set the Comets up with a shoot-out.

Gibson lined up for the shoot-out and moved past Tacoma keeper Danny Waltman to the right. Kevin Ellis caught up to Gibson’s right and received a pass which he buried in the back of the net for a 3-0 Kansas City lead.

Less than two minutes later, John Sosa found a wide open Gibson to his left, wide open in the box and that became Gibson’s second goal of the game. It was an unassisted goal by Gibson with 57 seconds left in the half which completed his hat-trick and put the Comets up 5-0 at the half.

Gibson picked up where he left off scoring his fourth goal of the game on an assist by Ramone Palmer to give the Comets a 6-0 lead with 9:48 left in the third quarter. The Stars ended their drought after that.

Chase Hanson was credited with a goal when a KC defender inadvertently headed the ball past Comets’ keeper Nicolau Neto to make it a 6-1 Comets lead with 7:36 on the clock in the third.

With Sosa in the box on a blue card, Adam West picked up a power-play goal to cut the Comets’ lead to 6-2 on an assist by Vini Dantas with just over five minutes remaining in the quarter.

Lesia Thetsane did not waste time converting an assist by Sosa into Kansas City’s seventh goal of the game just 11 seconds into the final quarter of play. The same pair teamed up again on the next goal four minutes later and the Comets were cruising at that point, leading 8-2 with 10:29 left to go.

With Tacoma’s sixth attacker on, Lucas Sousa found an empty net for his 10^th goal of the season and reach the final score of 9-2. With the win, Kansas City improves to 8-1 on the season, while the Stars fall to 2-4.

SCORING SUMMARY

1^st – KC Marques (Sosa) 0:33; KC Gibson (Lewis) 13:52. Penalties – KC Lee (blue- dangerous play) 14:48.

2^nd – KC Ellis (Gibson) 8:59 pp; KC Gibson (Sosa) 9:45; KC Gibson 14:03. Penalties – TAC Hollimon (blue- holding) 8:51.

3^rd – KC Gibson (Palmer) 5:12; TAC Hanson 7:24; TAC West (Dantas) 9:37 pp. Penalties – KC Sosa (blue- tripping) 9:37.

4^th – KC Thetsane (Sosa) 0:11; KC Thetsane (Sosa) 4:31; KC Sousa 14:08 en. Penalties – None.

Shots – Comets - 26; Tacoma – 33.

Power Play – Comets – 0/1; Tacoma – 1/2.