COMETS CLINCH PLAYOFF BERTH

 KANSAS CITY (Feb. 17, 2017) – The Kansas City Comets earned their ninth straight win on Friday night against the visiting Harrisburg Heat. With the win, they also secured a spot in the post-season for the seventh straight year. Eight players scored for the Comets tonight with Robert Palmer, Alain Matingou, Vahid Assadpour and Bryan Perez each scoring two goals. Kansas City led the entire game as they claimed their 12-4 win.

“I think that for this last seven to ten games, whatever we were missing…finishing…that’s what worked today,” said Comets head coach Goran Karadzov.

The Comets were actually outshot by the Harrisburg Heat, something that hasn’t happened at the Silverstein Eye Centers Arena very often. They made every shot count though with 12 goals on 28 shots.

The Comets resident restart master, John Sosa had four assists on the night, beginning with the opening goal of the game. Sosa calmly stood at the top of the box and laid an easy pass to Bryan Perez who simply had to tap it into a waiting net. Ramone Palmer tacked another goal to give the Comets a 2-0 lead at the end of the opening period.

Former Comets player Jose Luiz Birche got Harrisburg on the board less than two minutes into the seond quarter, cutting the lead to 2-1. However, Kansas City answered back with five straight goals from Alain Matingou, Lucas Rodriguez, Guerrero Pino, Perez and Ramone Palmer. Harrisburg’s Marcos Chantel was able to stop the onslaught at the end of the period, but the Comets still held a 7-2 lead at the halftime break.

Harrisburg is in the thick of a very competitive playoff race of their own and they started the second half looking to climb back into the game. Another former Comets player, Elmo Neto, scored 27 seconds into the half followed by an unassisted score from Stephen Basso.

With their lead cut down to 7-4, the Comets again applied the pressure. Vahid Assadpour scored two straight goals before Matingou hit a rocket of a volley that seemingly tore the back of the net as it gave the Comets a 10-4 lead after three quarters.

Robert Palmer and Pino each scored in the final quarter to ice the game as the Comets finished with their biggest win margin of the season.

The team heads north to Milwaukee for a 7:35 p.m. CT match against the Wave on Saturday. Already having punched their ticket to the playoffs, a win against Milwaukee will clinch the Central Division title for the fourth straight season.