Kansas City Comets work overtime to beat Dallas Sidekicks, advance to MASL semifinals

Two games wasn’t sufficient to decide their first-round MASL playoff series, so the Kansas City Comets and Dallas Sidekicks went to indoor soccer’s version of overtime Tuesday night at Cable Dahmer Arena in Independence.

One additional 15-minute quarter, a mini-game in which the team that scored the most goals would win the series and advance to play the Florida Tropics in the Major Arena Soccer League’s Ron Newman Cup semifinals.

The Comets got two goals in the bonus session, from Rian Marques (14:24) and Lesia Thetsane (8:53), before Dallas pulled one back (Luiz Morales, 7:39). Just for good measure, and to effectively close it out, Ray Lee upped the Comets’ advantage to 3-1 with a goal off a loose ball with just 42 seconds remaining.

That’s how it ended, a thrilling 3-1 decision in Kansas City’s favor sending the Comets on to the next round. The series schedule for the semifinals is expected to be released soon.

The extra time was needed after the Sidekicks had earlier won Tuesday evening’s full-time game, beating their hosts 7-5 to knot the series at one victory apiece. The Comets had beaten the Sidekicks 7-3 on Saturday in Dallas to take a 1-0 series lead.

True to this hard-fought and evenly matched series, the Comets and Sidekicks were even 2-2 at halftime of Tuesday night’s full-length game. The first-half stats reflected the parity, with KC taking 18 shots, Dallas 16.

This story was originally published April 12, 2022 at 10:18 PM.