The St. Louis Ambush kicked off its 2017-18 Major Arena Soccer League last weekend with a 10-8 road loss to the Kansas City Comets.

“Overall, there were more positives than negatives,” said new Ambush player-coach Hewerton Moriera, whose team makes its home debut 7:05 p.m. Saturday against the Milwaukee Wave (2-0) at Family Arena in St. Charles. “We still have some work to do, some old habits to break, but we were in the game and led through a good part of it. A few individual mistakes cost us, but I think we’ll learn and grow because of them.

“But at the end, with the game on the line, our guys didn’t panic.”

But Kansas City came up with a pair of late goals to escape with the win.

“It it just seemed like Kansas City’s experience was the difference,” said Ambush forward Victor France, who led the team in scoring a year ago with 13 goals and five assists and who had four goals and an assist in the opener. “They expected to win, they believed they were going to win and they did what they needed to do. With us, there seemed to be some doubt, not knowing how to win or truly believing in our system and knowing how to finish the game like we needed to.

“What this team needs more than anything right now is a win.”