Milwaukee Wave News Release -- www.milwaukeewave.com
Friday, December 2, 2011
MILWAUKEE, Wisc. – The Milwaukee Wave took down the Missouri Comets 24-18 in a wild, wide-open affair behind Hewerton’s four-goal performance to claim its 10th consecutive home win. The victory maintained Milwaukee’s perfect record, pushing them to 5-0 and two games ahead of the Comets in the Central Division.
Hewerton led Milwaukee with eight points, reaching a milestone by scoring the 250th point of his career, while Marcio Leito added four points and scored the 50th 2-point goal of his career. Giuliano Oliviero also dished out three assists en route to a five-point performance, his first points of the season. Geison led Missouri with six points while Byron Alvarez maintained his scoring touch with two goals and an assist.
Milwaukee strted the scoring with Pablo netting his second game-opening goal of the season with just under 11 minutes to play in the first quarter off a Leite assist. Things got really interesting at the six-minute mark when the Wave’s Hewerton was given a blue card for tripping, immediately followed by a Missouri blue card 10 seconds later for an intentional hand ball. Milwaukee held the lion’s share of the possession but was unable to put the ball in the net. The Comets made Milwaukee pay tying up the game with 4:09 remaining off a Neto goal from inches away.
The first quarter action was only getting started, though, as Oliviero once again put the Wave on top 17 seconds later, scoring his first goal of the season with a smart angled shot. The lead was short lived as Neto once again evened up the score, this time off a turnaround, beating Marcel Feenstra low. Milwaukee put the final touches on the quarter with a one-time blast from Hewerton off a pass from Matt Stewart. The goal not only put Milwaukee up 6-4, it gave Hewerton his 250th point of his career.
The second quarter picked up where the first left off with Milwaukee going on the power-play less than two minutes in, after Brian Harris was blue carded for tripping. But Missouri was the one to take advantage of the Milwaukee power-play with Coady Andrews counter-attacking and scoring a short-handed goal to tie the score. Milwaukee once again was given a man advantage when Alvarez was carded for committing his fourth foul of the game, but yet again failed to capitalize. Shortly after the power play ended, though, J.P. Rodrigues gave Milwaukee the lead back scoring a rocket off a bouncing pass from Leite.
The third time was finally the power-play charm for the Wave as Leite pushed in an Oliviero pass for his 50th 2-point goal of his career to make it 10-6. Then as the half was winding down and both teams were ready to take a breather, Ian Bennett led a two-on-one break which Nick Perera converted to give the Wave a 12-6 lead going into the half.
The lead was stretched to eight early in the third quarter when Hewerton found a loose ball and slotted home a turnaround shot for his second of the match. The pace of play then slowed to a crawl with Milwaukee content to pass the ball around and Missouri left to chase the game. The patient Wave offense struck gold with eight minutes to go as Matt Stewart scored his first goal of the season off a pass from Bennett. That was followed by Hewerton’s third goal of the game to make it 18-6 and seemingly put the game out of reach.
But the Comets surged back with a 4-0 run in 30 seconds with goals from Harris on a full-court run and Alvarez from a penalty shootout making it 18-10. Milwaukee hit back quickly, though, and staged a 4-0 run of its own in only 11 seconds with Bennett and Hewerton both scoring to make it 22-10 at the end of three.
Missouri flipped the script in the fourth quarter, scoring first on a Vahid Assadpour laser that beat Feenstra low making it 22-12. Perera answered with his second of the night, finishing a bouncing ball that wasn’t cleared by Missouri keeper Danny Waltman to make it 24-12. The back-and-forth continued with one of the best goals of the young season as Missouri’s keeper dribbled the ball all the way up to the 3-point line before delivering a picture perfect pass to Geison who made it 24-14.
The Comets continued their push, making Milwaukee pay for giving them a man-advantage as Alvarez scored his second of the match to cut the lead to eight. The lead shrank to six when Alvarez then assisted Geison with a sixth attacker out on the field. But that was as close as the Comets would come though, with Milwaukee coming away 24-18 victors.