Tropics lead only once, but still rally for 9-8 road win over Milwaukee Wave

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin – The Florida Tropics rallied once again on the road to outlast the Milwaukee Wave 9-8 before 4,413 fans at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena Saturday night in Major Arena Soccer League play. 

The Tropics are 3-1 on their longest road trip of the season – five games – with the finale in St. Louis Sunday afternoon in a 5 p.m., EST start against the Ambush. The game will be broadcast live on the MASL’s YouTube channel. 

Although the game was tied on four different occasions, the Tropics never had a lead in the game until Kiel Williams got the game winner with just 1:37 left in the fourth quarter.

Florida was down 4-3 at intermission after getting two first half goals from Ricardo Carvalho and a third from Junior Alencar, who played for the U.S. National Futsal Team this past summer in the World Cup. He was obtained in a trade with Utica City in late January along with former Tropics forward Ricardo Diegues. 

The see-saw affair continued in the second half and Milwaukee had a 7-5 lead three minutes into the fourth on a goal by Ian Bennett who played for Florida last season. From there, however, Tropics got four of the game’s final goals as Zach Reget scored twice and Joshio Sandoval once to set up Williams to play the role of hero. Victor Parreiras also added a goal for Florida. 

Florida remains in first place in the Eastern Division with a  12-2-1 record, good for 40 points, nine more than the second place Baltimore Blast who have played three more games than the Tropics. Those two teams also have two games left against each other this regular season, March 20 and April 3, both at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland. Teams get three points for a win, two for an overtime win, one for an overtime loss and no points for a loss in regulation time. 

The Tropics will return to the RP Funding Center in Lakeland next weekend for their first home game since January when they host the Tacoma Stars is a special “Star Wars” themed game that includes Star Wars Tropics jerseys that will be auctioned off after the contest. Kickoff is at 3:05 p.m. 

The “Tropics Blitz” allows for free general admission tickets  as a way of providing a great evening of family entertainment for parents and kids who have had their activities curtailed because of the ongoing pandemic.

Vehicles with two or more persons will pay $20 to park, and then be able to take their parking receipt to the RP Funding Center box office for the same number of free tickets to that day’s game as occupants in the vehicle. Single occupant vehicles will pay just $10 for parking. 

For more information, visit www.fltropics.com,