COMETS GET COMEBACK WIN

KANSAS CITY (Jan. 20, 2017) – The Kansas City Comets won in thrilling comeback style against the Syracuse Silver Knights on Friday night. Brian Harris scored the winning goal with 1:20 to play, thrilling the 4,555 fans in attendance.

Fresh off his Player of the Week award, Alain Matingou seemed to energize his team early in the game. In the third minute of the game he found Leo Gibson open in front of the Syracuse goal. Gibson wasted no time and put the Comets up 1-0 in the opening quarter.

Rookie Stefanos Stamoulacatos scored his first career goal for the Silver Knights in the second quarter and captain Bo Jelovac tallied another one on at the end of the period. However Matingou scored fifth goal of the season in between those and kept the score level at 2-2 going into halftime.

After a long halftime break, due to the Comets annual Mascot Game, the Silver Knights scored two goals in the third quarter and another in fourth and suddenly the Comets found themselves behind 5-2.

“There was concern, as there should be if you’re losing,” said Gibson. “We weren’t panicked though. We knew that we were a good team and we could do this.”

For the second straight week, the Comets rallied themselves and began their comeback.

First, Gibson laid an easy ball off to captain Vahid Assadpour who shot a screaming ball to the back of the net. Assadpour then followed up with two assists to Gibson and Bryan Perez to tie the game.

Kansas City continued to pressure the Syracuse defense. Gibson received a ball at the top of the arc with his back to goal. Double-teamed, he dropped a pass to a wide-open Brian Harris for the game-winner.

“I was on the left and ran to the other side to clear space for Leo. When I got there I saw Leo with the ball and two guys on his back and realized I was wide open. I just concentrated on getting the ball and putting it on net.”

The Comets are now 9-4 and share the Central Division lead with the Cedar Rapids Rampage. The team travels north to take on the Chicago Mustangs on Sunday at 3:05p.m. CT.

The team encourages fans to join the Watch Party at Coach’s Bar & Grille on 103^rd & Wornall or to watch the action on MASLtv, the league’s streaming home.