Vini Dantas Back In The Fold As Baltimore Blast Gears Up For Playoffs

With less than three weeks to go in the 2021-22 Major Arena Soccer League regular season, the Baltimore Blast made a trade in hopes of increasing its offensive firepower as it pursues an 11th indoor soccer title.

The Blast reached a deal March 17 to acquire Vini Dantas from the Tacoma Stars, reuniting the striker with the team with which he spent the first six years of his career. Dantas, who was shipped to Tacoma in the offseason ahead of the COVID-abridged 2021 season, scored 136 goals with the Blast from 2014-2020. He had performed well in 24 games for the Stars, scoring 27 goals and assisting on nine more.

“When the opportunity came to come here and try to have a go at it again with a system that I know and players that I know, it just sounded like a chance of winning. And who wouldn’t want that, right?” said Dantas, who tallied three goals and an assist in the Blast’s final two games.

Now, Dantas is back in the fold as fifth-seeded Baltimore gears up for the Ron Newman Cup playoffs. The Blast’s quarterfinal series against the fourth-seeded Chihuahua Savage begins April 8 at Towson University’s SECU Arena. The game kicks off at 7:35 p.m.

The home-and-home set will then move to Corner Sport Arena in Chihuahua, Mexico, on April 11. If the teams both win a game, they’ll then play a 15-minute overtime period followed by a golden goal overtime if the game remains tied.

The winner will move on to the semifinal round. Teams that advance will be reseeded, with the higher seed playing the lowest seed and the remaining two teams facing each other.

The Blast finished the regular season with a 12-9 record, good for second place in the East Division behind the Florida Tropics (18-3-2). Baltimore suffered its most regular-season losses since 2009-10 when it posted an 11-9 campaign, eventually losing in a playoff semifinal.

Chihuahua, meanwhile, is in its first season in the MASL, taking over the membership previously held by Soles de Sonora. The Savage compiled a 15-7-2 record in its inaugural season, finishing a distant second in the West Division behind the league-leading San Diego Sockers (23-0-1).

The teams did not play each other in the regular season. Both lost their regular-season finales. Chihuahua fell 6-3 to Utica FC. The Blast lost to the Sockers, 8-6, on March 26, and its April 3 game against Florida was canceled.

The last time Baltimore played in a playoff was 2018-19 when it lost to the Milwaukee Wave in the Eastern Conference finals. The Blast has a veteran core that remembers that loss and is eager to return to winning in the postseason, Dantas said.

“There are teams that are just extremely good at playoff games and then there are teams that are extremely good at regular-season games,” he said. “The Blast go through many ups and downs [in the regular season], trying to figure things out, and trying people at different spots just to see how they do. And then as soon as the playoffs start, it’s kind of like, ‘OK, enough playing around. Let’s do what we’ve got to do.'”

The playoff campaign will be the first for head coach David Bascome, who took over the team in 2020 after many years as an assistant under Danny Kelly. During the season, Bascome has seen his team slowly gel thanks to a combination of veteran players and new recruits who have picked up the game quickly.

“We’re right where we’re supposed to be at, in this drive for the playoffs,” Bascome said the day after the team acquired Dantas. “And all these components, all these elements for success, are right there.”

The team will face a stiff defensive test against Chihuahua, which scored a league-leading 185 goals. Jorge Rios led the team with 33 goals.

Baltimore was led offensively by striker Lucas Roque, who totaled 26 goals and 13 assists, and the midfield combo of Jonatas Melo and Tony Donatelli, who scored 22 goals apiece.

To make it back to the championship will require a defensive effort reminiscent of Blast teams from years past, Roque said.

In the regular season, the Blast allowed 111 goals, the second fewest in the MASL behind San Diego. It killed off 68 percent of its penalties, good for fourth in the league. Top-choice goalkeeper William Vanzela had an up-and-down season marred by a six-game absence while he recovered from a concussion.

In Vanzela’s stead, Mike Zierhoffer helped keep the Blast’s postseason hopes alive, compiling a 5-2 record and .773 save percentage. Vanzela returned to finish the season with a 7-7 record and a .682 save percentage, the lowest of his career.

“We win with our defense. When we defend as the Blast as we did for many years, I think we put ourselves in a position to make it to the end,” Roque said. “I don’t think people want to face us when it matters. They know what we’re capable of.

“I wouldn’t want to face the Blast if I was the other team because when it counts we have players that know how to play and they show up.”

Roque said he has high expectations for the playoffs. He sat out the 2018-19 season with a torn ACL, the COVID-19 pandemic ended the 2019-20 playoffs before they could begin and the Blast didn’t participate in the COVID-shortened 2021 season. But prior to that, he made the finals in six straight seasons from 2012-13 to 2017-18.

“I’ve never missed a final and I’m not planning on it this year,” Roque said. “I’m not going home early.”

Photo Credit: Sabina Moran

Brooks DuBose

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