Gloom fall in crushing playoff loss

The Santa Fe Gloom’s charmed season came to a crushing end Saturday night.

The infant franchise in the National Futsal Premier League had a chance to keep its inaugural season alive but could not hold on to leads of 5-1, 6-3 and 7-5 against Colorado Futsal Academy.

Colorado scored three times in the last 4 minutes, only to see the Gloom rally and force a tie at 8-all at the end of regulation, then endured 11 rounds of penalty kicks before winning the shootout by a 9-8 count.

Colorado, the Southwest Division champion, will play for the NFPL title in two weeks.

In an intense battle that saw Santa Fe control most of the match, it came down to a drawn-out penalty kick phase.

The Gloom had a chance to win it in the seventh round, but Jim Guzman’s shot deflected off the shoulder of Colorado goalkeeper Jean Caro to keep it 5-all in the shootout.

Caro made the game-clinching save, blocking Peter Torres’ shot to the left side of the net.

Santa Fe, meanwhile, saw its underdog hopes vanish in the second half. After building a 5-1 lead late in the first half, Colorado scored once prior to the end of the first half, then scored twice in the first 1:02 of the second half to get within 5-3.

The Gloom pushed the lead up to 6-3 on Jason Colls goal with 11:28 left in regulation, but Colorado responded with a pair of goals, capped by Nicholas Lasso’s score with 7:07 left.

It appeared Santa Fe had weathered the Colorado rally when Isai Rivas ripped a shot from 40 feet at the 4:27 mark that made it 7-5.

However, the hosts scored twice in a 2:05 stretch, capped by Maical Caro’s redirect off a missed penalty kick for 7-all when the Gloom played a man down after Rivas was ejected for receiving a red card.

The sequence led to a 10-minute delay as tempers flared on both teams and officials ejected fans from behind the Colorado bench.

Colorado took a short-lived 8-7 lead with 1:35 left before Julian Bustamante scored with 43 seconds left to force the shootout.