Comets comeback falls short against Stars

The Kansas City Comets took a tough loss against the Tacoma Stars by a final score of 6-5 on Saturday night at Cable Dahmer Arena.

Kansas City’s comeback fell just short, bringing an end to their four-game winning streak. Ray Lee bagged a brace while John Sosa scored one and assisted two as their record dropped to 5-5 this season. Vini Dantas added three goals for the visitors.

Dantas opened the scoring for Tacoma with the only goal of the first quarter before Eddie Na doubled their lead in the second. Leo Gibson got one back for KC, but Tacoma answered with two goals to close out the first half from Willie Spurr and a second for Dantas, giving the Stars a three-goal lead at halftime.

Tacoma was given a four-goal cushion in the third period after Dantas finished his hat trick. Kansas City responded with a pair of goals from Ray Lee as well as a goal from Mike Da Silva, cutting Tacoma’s lead down to one.

Gibson entered as Kansas City’s sixth attacker with about four minutes to play in the fourth quarter, opening the door for Adrian Correa to find the empty net after Gibson’s giveaway. The Comets were able to get one back through John Sosa, but the equalizing effort from Gibson narrowly missed and the Comets dropped their second game against the Stars this season.

Saturday’s loss keeps the Comets in third place with a .500 winning percentage, however, the winner of Sunday’s Tacoma-St. Louis game will take third if the Comets lose on Sunday. Tacoma improves to 3-4 this season and sit in sixth place with a .429 winning percentage as they head to St. Louis for a meeting with the Ambush on Sunday.

Both keepers had some big saves for their teams and maybe one or two moments they would like to have back, but the Comets will regret the way they started the game. The Comets got burnt in transition a number of times in the first two quarters, leading to Tacoma scoring several goals on the counter attack. By the time KC was able to sort things out, it was already a big hole to dig themselves out of, which they fell just short in doing so.

The Comets will look for a rebound win on Sunday against the 5-1 Ontario Fury before finishing the regular season against the Dallas Sidekicks the following Sunday.