Kixx win twice, reach title game

By winning twice in one evening, the Kixx earned their first appearance in the Major Indoor Soccer League championship game since they took the title in 2002.

The Kixx evened their two-game playoff series with last night's 10-6 win over the Chicago Storm at the Wachovia Spectrum.

Since the Storm won the first game, 11-8, on Friday in Chicago, MISL rules said the teams had to play a sudden-death "Golden Goal" overtime game immediately after last night's regulation match. First to score would win the series.

In the Golden Goal game, John Barry Nusum scored a two-point goal that deflected off a Chicago defender to give the Kixx a 2-0 victory after 9 minutes, 32 seconds.

The Kixx will head to Detroit for Saturday's 4 p.m. MISL championship game, which will be televised on Versus. They will play the winner of the Milwaukee-Detroit series, which Milwaukee leads after yesterday's 13-11 win. The series will conclude today in Detroit.

Five minutes into the Golden Goal game, goalie Peter Pappas kept the Kixx alive by coming far out of the net to stop Mariano Bollella on a breakaway. That came after Chicago goalie Jim Larkin made a diving save on a hard shot by Kixx midfielder Tony Donatelli, the rookie from Temple.

Less than five minutes later, Nusum scored the series-winning goal by stealing the ball along the boards and sending a pass to Dino Delevski, who was tying up a defender.

"I went to the ball and was hooking off the defender, and then the ball hit off him," Delevski said. "John Barry Nusum made a great play, and he deserved to get the goal."

The goal initially was awarded to Delevski, but after a review by the officials, Nusum was credited with the two-pointer, his second of the evening.

"I just wanted to fight for the ball and get it into the box," Nusum said.

That fight proved to be the difference.

"John never gave up on the ball, and it was a great play on his part," Delevski said.

As fate would have it, Nusum scored the first goal of the evening and the last.

The Kixx set the early tempo in the regulation game, jumping to a 6-0 lead on two-point goals by Nusum, Delevski, and player-coach Don D'Ambra, who stole the ball and then drilled a seven-yard blast for his second postseason goal in two nights.

Chicago woke up, scoring a two-pointer on a shot by Mark Ughy before the Kixx answered. Sandre Naumoski scored a two-pointer on a bouncing header to boost the Kixx lead to 8-2.

Late in the second period, Chicago's Randy Soderman cut the lead in half with a two-pointer.

In the first half, Donatelli and fellow midfielder David Castellanos saved goals by making blocks after Pappas had vacated the net.

Kixx midfielder Ptah Myers and Chicago's Fabinho exchanged third-period goals. Neither team scored in the fourth period, giving the Kixx the win and the opportunity to win the series.