Wave assistant coach Art Kramer checks in with his weekly blog, Kramer's Corner.

We had a very competitive two games this past weekend versus the California Cougars.

I had to laugh the next morning when I read an article that referred to our opponent as the "lowly Cougars" and stated that "apparently the Wave missed that memo, the one that said this game was supposed to be a cake-walk."

I guess whoever wrote that article was unaware that the Cougars had come within an eyelash of defeating the defending MISL champion Baltimore Blast on the road in their previous match.

We firmly believe that if we do not play to our potential, any team in the MISL can beat us on any given night. With only six teams, the parity in the league is at its highest level.

The Cougars are a talent-laden team, starting up front with veteran Aaron Susi and second year player Enrique Tovar. They are loaded at the second forward position with young stars Vincente Figeuroa, Brian Farber and Elvir Kafedzic. Their midfield is solid featuring Semir Mesanovic, Craig Scheer, Nelson Santana and Eduardo Velez. They have capable players in the back with veterans Antonio Sutton and Matt Caution combining with youngsters Ryan Hall, Marcos Chantel and lefty Adilson DeLima. They also have two fine prospects tending the goal in Dominek Jakubek and Matt McDougall.

The memo and message that we conveyed to our players prior to the weekend was that we would be in for a dog fight in the home and away series. We battled hard and were very good on specialty situations during the first game at home and won 16-14. The following night in California we received some solid play at the target position and won 23-18, with Todd Dusosky contributing 10 points. We felt very fortunate and were proud of our player's effort and resiliency.

We improved our winning steak to four games and are 6-2 over the past eight during this second 10 game stretch. We look forward to our game this Saturday versus the Chicago Storm at the US Cellular Arena. Chicago currently leads the season series two games to one, so we view this as an opportunity to even the series and put some distance between us and the Storm as they are currently positioned one-half game behind us in the standings.