Wisconsin Soccer Central

In their regular-season meetings, the Milwaukee Wave were one of the few teams able to keep pace with the Missouri Comets, playing two tight matches against the Major Arena Soccer League's only unbeaten team.

But in the Central Division final Thursday night, the Wave simply had no answers against the relentless Comets.

Leo Gibson, Josh Gardner and Vahid Assadpour had a goal and an assist apiece as Missouri scored six straight goals over the second and third quarters en route to a convincing 8-2 victory in front of 3,441 in Independence, Mo.

Tony Walls (Wauwatosa East/UW-Green Bay) and Stefan St. Louis scored and Marcio Leite set up both goals for Milwaukee (15-9), which was ousted from the playoffs by the Comets for the third consecutive season.

Missouri (21-0) advances to play the Baltimore Blast (19-2) in the Eastern Conference finals in a rematch of last season's Major Indoor Soccer League championship series, which the Comets won 2-1. Game 1 of the series is Friday night in Baltimore, with the return leg Sunday in Independence. The Blast got past the Rochester Lancers 6-4 in the Eastern Division final Wednesday in a multi-point scoring match.

The Comets, playing for the first time in 18 days, took the lead Thursday through Assadpour. Bryan Perez cruised down the right side and found Assadpour alone on the left side for the finish 3:09 into the game.

Walls answered just more than a minute later, powering in a shot from a tight angle on the right side. It was the converted defender's fourth goal in four postseason games and the 21st in 22 matches overall this season.

But the Wave wouldn't get another shot past Missouri goalkeeper Danny Waltman (15 saves) for more than 43 minutes as the game – and Milwaukee's season – slipped away.

Kiel Williams' drive up and over Wave keeper-assistant coach Nick Vorberg from the right side of the D 13 seconds into the second quarter gave the Comets the lead for good. Perez and Gardner also scored in the second, but the back-breaker came in the final seconds before halftime.

Milwaukee, which lost to Missouri 9-7 and 8-7 in a shootout during the regular season, had a good sequence of sustained pressure, but the Comets got the ball back and quickly countered. Wave defender Victor Quiroz slid in to seemingly break up the play, but Assadpour was able to pick up the loose ball on the left side and fired past Vorberg with 10.6 seconds left in the half to make it 5-1.

Goals by Brian Harris and Gibson in the third quarter extended the lead to 7-1 before St. Louis finally ended Milwaukee's scoring drought 2:21 into the fourth with his fourth postseason goal – it came with defender Jonathan Greenfield on as a sixth attacker in place of Vorberg (16 saves).

The Wave, who were plagued by injuries throughout the season, were without two key veterans for the game as neither forward Bato Radoncic nor defender Mike Lookingland made the trip.

The game pitted two of the three finalists for the league's Coach of the Year Award, as both Milwaukee's Giuliano Oliviero and Missouri's Vlatko Andonovski joined Bernie Lilavois of the Ontario Fury as finalists for the honor. The winner will be announced next week.