26 Feb 2015 Mustangs crush the Wave 6-3 in thrilling match

Hoffman Estates, IL– The Chicago Mustangs, proud members of the Major Arena Soccer League (www.MASLSoccer.com), defeated the Milwaukee Wave 6-3 Thursday night at the Sears Centre Arena in the first round of the Central Division playoffs.

In a battle between teams that split games in the regular season, both teams knew what was on the line coming in and Milwaukee capitalized first as they got on the board just 2 minutes into the game when forward Stefan St. Louis took a shot from a tough angle that deflected off the hands of Chicago goalkeeper Jesus Flores and into the net. The goal gave the Wave an early 1-0 lead. After a few great stops from Flores, the Mustangs answered back with 1 minute to go in the quarter when Hewerton buried a long strike from beyond the yellow line on a cross-field pass from Omar Santillan to tie the score up at 1.

Milwaukee got on the board with 8 minutes to go in the first half when St. Louis cut right, crossed Flores over, and tapped it into the back of the net to give the Wave a 2-1 lead. Less than a minute later Chicago answered right back when Bogar Moreno fired a shot that bounced right to midfielder Matthew Stewart and he bounced it off of the far post and into the net to knot it up at 2. Milwaukee regained the lead with 4:30 left on a restart after Marcio Leite slid a pass over to Ian Bennett and Bennett found a hole in Chicago’s coverage and scored with little defensive resistance to make it 3-2. The first half would end with that same score.

Chicago tied it back up at 3 with 7:30 to go in the 3rd when Hewerton took another pass from Santillan and beat Milwaukee’s Matt Eisold to the far post. Milwaukee obtained 2 penalties within seconds of each other to give the Mustangs a powerplay opportunity but the Wave were able to hold Chicago at bay despite several wide-open chances. While the scoring was sparse, the action was aplenty and Chicago finally broke the tie 5 minutes into the 4th when Hewerton fed “Wilo” Martinez with a beautiful pass for an upper-90 breakaway goal. Wilo’s goal gave Chicago a 4-3 advantage. The Mustangs extended their lead with 5:30 to go in the game on a 2-on-1 breakaway when Guilherme Veiga dribbled all the way to the boards and then fed Taylor Bond for a tap-in goal to make the score 5-3. Bond would add another goal 2 minutes later after Milwaukee pulled their goalie in favor of a 6th attacker to double the Wave 6-3 which would also be the final score. Chicago has the momentum and will now prepare for a road playoff game in Milwaukee on March 7.

Offensive Player of the Game: Hewerton Moreira, forward – 2 goals, 1 assist.

Defensive Player of the Game: Jesus Flores, goalie – 20 saves

(For the full game statistics, click here)

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