AROUND THE LEAGUE: Week 8

by Joseph Reina

The hunt for the MASL Shield is heating up after an intense and consequential weekend of indoor soccer action. Welcome back to Around The League, your home for numbers and nuance from the past week of action in the Major Arena Soccer League. The Stars endured a difficult series of results, but we’ll start in Milwaukee, where the Kansas City Comets made a statement by taking down the hosts in regulation.

Advantage Kansas City

In the past few weeks, we’ve discussed the Comets’ habit of missing the full haul, that is, getting all the points they perhaps deserved in recent games. They’ve stumbled late in games, especially against St. Louis, but that tendency seems like a distant memory after taking all six points from a difficult weekend against Tacoma and Milwaukee.

            The common denominator in both contests was Kansas City’s rapid starts. Against the Stars, the Comets found the net less than 70 seconds into the contest. They built upon that advantage with two more goals in the second quarter and eventually won 9-2 while outshooting the visitors 40-16. It was a statement win that reinforced the narrative that this season’s title fight is a three-horse race, at least for another 48 hours.

            In Milwaukee, the Comets scored the second-fastest opening goal in MASL history when forward Zach Reget found defender Chad Vandegriffe’s streaking run to the back post after just eight seconds. By the end of the first quarter, Kansas City held a 4-0 lead over its historic rivals. 

The Wave, though down, was far from out and clawed its way back into the game, slowly as the contest wore on. With less than four minutes remaining, forward Alex Sanchez drew his side within one, but the Comets held on, adding an insurance goal from long range to seal the 7-5 win.

            These two teams now occupy the top two spots in the standings, with San Diego three points behind after losing to the Wave in Milwaukee on Saturday night. It’s tough to say at this point which team is better, especially after the Wave won both road games against the Comets earlier this season, but for now, it’s advantage Kansas City.

Looking at the stats, both teams' strengths jump off the page. The Wave has the highest offensive Goals Per Shot (GPS) at 0.268, meaning they create extremely dangerous attacking opportunities and convert those chances at a high rate, in this case, 26.8% of the time. Kansas City, by contrast, is holding its opponents to the league’s lowest GPS (0.185).

When these teams play against each other, the Wave’s GPS is 0.239, but against all other opponents, the Comets give up an astonishing 0.168 GPS. That gap is tremendous, and it's not a coincidence that the Comets earned their first win by holding the Wave to a GPS under 0.22 for the first time this season. 

When we look at dropped points per game, the two sides are virtually inseparable. For anyone unfamiliar, dropped points are the total possible points minus the points a team has earned, allowing us to even the playing field for teams that have played different numbers of games.

The Wave leads the MASL with 1.1 dropped points per game, but the Comets are right behind with 1.154, a gap that is not statistically significant. The Comets do boast a slightly better Goal Differential and Hoxie numbers, even adjusted for per-game figures, but it's still too close to separate the two sides at this point.

We’ll have to wait until mid-February for these two rivals to square off again, but in the meantime, the Wave and Comets are back in action this weekend for a series of home-and-away affairs. Milwaukee will hit the road to face the Ambush on Saturday, Jan. 24, at 5:05 PM EST before hosting the Ambush the following day. Over in California, the Comets will take on the Strykers this Sunday, Jan. 26, at 7:05 PM EST before closing out the month at home against Empire on Friday, Jan 30.

Trouble in Tacoma?

The honeymoon phase is over in Tacoma. After a heroic start, the Stars are dangerously close to sliding down the standings, as those around them grab points and make up valuable ground. Two losses this weekend put Tacoma level on points with Baltimore and St. Louis, and just six points ahead of Utica and Empire.

Road games continue to be the Stars’ Achilles heel, and against the Comets, they just weren’t able to put up a serious challenge. Kansas City scored early and continued building upon its lead, eventually running out 9-2 winners in an uncontested contest. At home on Sunday, the Stars put up a valiant fight, but fell late after a wicked deflection flew past a helpless Luis Birrueta in Tacoma’s goal. 

Head coach Adam Becker’s side has struggled in recent weeks, as their opponents adapt to their rapid transition. In their first five matches, Tacoma conceded just 21 shots per game, but in their last four, that figure has jumped to 28.5, indicating the rest of the league is finding ways to increase offensive output against the Stars.

The volume alone could be negated, but unfortunately for Tacoma, the quality of those chances is also rising. Their defensive GPS is the second-worst in the league, at 0.247, and as a result, they’ve endured significantly more close games while their offense struggles to offset this added burden.

            This weekend, the Strykers did a great job of controlling play while leading, attempting to build on their lead rather than bunker in and defend it. This phase of attacking while leading lasted through the majority of the third quarter and into the fourth, but Tacoma did well to regain control and get back on the front foot as they worked their way back into the game. Though they lost in the end, the ability to come back against a team as defensively sound as Empire should still be applauded. 

          Tacoma’s individuals are showing up on the scoresheet, with Micheal Ramos, Nani Mendoza, Tyler John, Alex Caceres, and Adrian Correa all averaging over 0.5 points per game, but forward Jamael Cox is proving himself to be the new face of the franchise with 1.5 points per game. His pace and situational intelligence are instrumental to his team’s success, and if Tacoma is going to make the playoffs, they’ll need their talisman to lead the lines.

            As a unit, the Stars are still holding their own, but they’ll need to stop dropping points, especially against the teams at the bottom of the table. Their roadmap to the playoffs is clear: win the home games, and it’s practically a lock. Their first test on both counts comes in the form of an exciting back-to-back series at home against Utica. This game has the potential to turn into a track meet, making for a thrilling game of helter-skelter indoor soccer. Tune in to game one on Saturday, Jan. 24, at 9:05 PM EST, live from the accesso ShoWare Center.