January 28, 2024 – Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) – St. Louis Ambush News Release
St. Louis Ambush’s Marcel Berry in action
(St. Louis Ambush)
Ontario, California – The St. Louis Ambush lost an 8-7 overtime nail-biter to the Empire Strykers Sunday evening at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, California. The loss is the second of the weekend for the Ambush and their third overtime loss of the season. The Ambush drop to 2-9-2 on the season and the Strykers improve to 3-9-0.
St. Louis struck first in the seventh minute of the game when Marcel Berry sent a pass across the goal mouth to a charging VcMor Eligwe, who pounded the ball into the net. The first quarter elapsed with the Ambush leading 1-0.
The Strykers drew even when Moustapha Gueye took a pass from Justin Stinson and found the back of the net in the second minute of the second quarter. The Srykers took a 2-1 lead in the third minute of the frame when Stinson assisted again, this time passing to Gerardo Jurado, who beat Ambush goalkeeper Paulo Nascimento with his shot. Stinson continued in the playmaker role when he sent a pass to Miguel Ponce, who headed the ball into the net in the eighth minute of the period to increase their lead to 3-1. St. Louis got one back on Richard Schmermund’s unassisted tally in the tenth minute. The Strykers went up 4-2 in the eleventh minute when a Marco Fabian shot came off the post, deflected off an Ambush defender and into the net. The Strykers struck again with 12 seconds remaining in the first half when Fabian drew Nascimento out of the goal, then passed the ball to Stefan Mijatovic, who easily put the ball on target to make ita 5-2 game through the halftime break.
Jurado got his second goal of the contest in the second minute of the third quarter when he beat Nascimento with a rocket of a shot to make it a 6-2 game. St. Louis got one back when Ado Jahic was left unmarked and scored off a pass from Lucas Almeida in the eighth minute. In the thirteenth minute, Almeida notched another assist and Eligwe his second goal to shave the scoring gap to 6-4. With 35 seconds remaining in the third stanza, James Togbah scored the fifth Ambush goal to make it a one point game (6-5) heading into the final stanza.
The fourth quarter remained scoreless until the fourteenth minute when Nascimento took on the role of the quasi-sixth attacker and scored with one minute and five seconds left on the clock to knot the score 6-6. With 29.9 seconds left, William Eskay scored with a long…