After Mini-Drought, Baltimore Blast Ready To Compete For MASL Championship

After a four-year drought, the Baltimore Blast will once again compete for a Major Arena Soccer League championship.

Baltimore will face Chihuahua Savage in a best-of-three series starting April 27 at Corner Sport Arena in Chihuahua, Mexico.

Due to scheduling conflicts at SECU Arena, the series will be played entirely at Chihuahua’s home arena. The games will be held April 27 and April 28, with kickoff at 10 p.m. If the teams split the first two games, a 15-minute knockout game will be played immediately following Game 2. A tie after 15 minutes will result in 10-minute sudden-death overtime periods until a champion is crowned.

The Blast booked its first trip to the Ron Newman Cup Finals since 2017-18 this past weekend, sweeping the Milwaukee Wave in the Eastern Conference Finals.

After struggling midseason as the team coped with injuries on defense, Baltimore didn’t panic when it sat in fourth place in the Eastern Conference in mid-February. The Blast finished the regular season strong, winning five of seven to lock up the No. 2 seed.

“Everything comes in time,” said head coach David Bascome, who is making his first championship appearance since taking over in 2020. Bascome won three titles as a Blast player and five more as an assistant coach.

His team’s ability to adapt and execute his philosophy has helped the squad peak at the right time, Bascome said. It also helped that several key defensive players who were injured have returned for the playoffs, including Jereme Raley, Mike Deasal and Onua Obasi.

“When shifting players’ mental and physical [focus] to new changes it is important that as a coach we stay on track and not get [overly] concerned when results do not happen,” Bascome said.

The team had already bought into his philosophy last season, he said.

“This was more of identifying our system’s execution and having the ability to process it more consistently,” Bascome said.

This is Baltimore’s 19th indoor soccer championship appearance and fifth since the MASL formed in 2014-15. The Blast will be seeking their fourth MASL title and 11th overall.

Baltimore is no stranger to playing in Mexico in pursuit of a championship. Its last four finals appearances have been played there.

In 2014-15, the Blast lost the inaugural MASL final to the Monterrey Flash at Monterrey Arena. A year later, in 2015-16, Baltimore defeated Sonores de Sol on the road to win its first of three straight titles. The following year, Baltimore staged a dramatic comeback to again beat Sonora. The Blast capped the three-peat in 2017-18 by getting revenge against the Flash, again on the road.

“Mexico has a great culture for this beautiful game and plays with conviction, they have good technical abilities,” said Bascome, who was assistant coach for all four of those series. “I would not call it a hostile environment but one that shows passion and love for the game. We must enjoy the game, match intensity and be up for the challenge of playing away from home.”

Baltimore is led by MASL All-Second Team forward Lucas Roque, who scored a career-high 30 goals in the regular season. Jonatas Melo and newcomer Moises Gonzales pitched in with 20 and 17 goals, respectively.

As the season has gone on, players have begun to execute on offense and find themselves with scoring chances around goal, Bascome said. It has taken the pressure off Roque and allowed other offensive players, like forwards Juan Pereira and Max Ferdinand, to play with more freedom, Bascome said. As a result, 11 players have scored at least once in Baltimore’s five postseason games. Ferdinand and Pereira each lead the team with three goals.

MASL All-Second Team goalkeeper William Vanzela defends the net, coming in with a regular season record of 11-5-1 and a 4.14 GAA. The team’s postseason defense has been excellent as well, killing off 80 percent of the penalties it has faced, a marked improvement from 48 percent during the regular season.

In an opening-round series against the No. 3 seed Florida Tropics, the Blast won Game 1, 4-3, before getting blown out in Game 2, 14-1. Baltimore came out firing in the deciding third game, outshooting Florida 12-6 on its way to a 3-2 victory.

Scheduling conflicts in Baltimore forced the Blast to play both games on the road in conference finals, the team’s first appearance since 2018-19. Baltimore won Game 1 in Milwaukee April 21 in dramatic fashion, on an overtime goal by Jamie Thomas to secure a 5-4 victory. In Game 2, Baltimore used a three-goal third quarter to help put away the top-seeded Wave, winning 5-3.

Now, the Blast will face Chihuahua, which will be making its first championship appearance in only its second season of existence. In the 2021-22 playoffs, the Savage swept the Blast in the quarterfinals before falling to San Diego in the next round.

Bascome credited Chihuahua as being a “very good technical team” that “presses and represses well.” The Savage boasted the highest-scoring offense in the league with 179 goals, led by MASL All-Second Team forward Hugo Puentes and Edgar González, who each scored 28 goals in the regular season. Berna Valdovinos is the team’s shotstopper, finishing the regular season with an 11-3-1 record and a 4.76 GAA.

After knocking off the Monterrey Flash 2-1 in the Western Conference semifinals, the No. 2 seed Savage pulled off a stunning upset in the conference finals by defeating top-ranked San Diego Sockers in sudden-death overtime of the knockout game to win the series. The defeat brought to an end the Sockers’ pursuit of a third straight MASL title.

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Photo Credit: Sabina Moran

Brooks DuBose