But the Drillers' offense sputtered for most of the night Thursday as it ran into the Milwaukee Wave's league-best defense in Game 1 of the National Conference finals.

The Wave survived a seven-point rally by the Drillers in the third period and prevailed, 13-7, at the Skyreach Centre to move within one victory of a trip to the National Professional Soccer League finals.

Milwaukee leads the best-of-three series, 1-0, and can advance to the league finals for the second time in three years by winning Game 2, scheduled for Saturday night at the Bradley Center.

The Wave played without leading scorer Michael King, who was in uniform but did not leave the bench due to a thigh injury suffered in Milwaukee's first-round playoff series. Defender Lovelace Ackah was unavailable due to visa restrictions that prevented him from traveling to Canada.

But Milwaukee, using Todd Dusosky and Matt Tirschman as its target forwards and Chris Jahr in the defense, hardly seemed to mind. Veteran Peter Hattrup and Dusosky each scored two goals in a span of 2 minutes 31 seconds late in the first period and early in the second to give the Wave a 9-0 advantage.

"I thought Todd's goal was huge," Wave coach Keith Tozer said of Dusosky's turning three-pointer at 14:32 of the opening period, 24 seconds after Hattrup had scored on a restart. "There's a big difference, believe it or not, between 4-0 and 5-0."

Dusosky scored again 8 seconds into the next period when he redirected a long cross from midfielder Steve Morris, and Hattrup capped the outburst moments later by pushing the ball past Drillers goalkeeper Jim Larkin and scoring into the vacated Edmonton net.

Nikola Vignjevic, Edmonton's top scorer, finally ignited the Drillers after they had fallen behind, 11-0, early in the third quarter. Vignjevic scored a three-point goal, a two-pointer and assisted on Paul Dailly's goal at 8:50 of the period as the Drillers quickly cut their deficit to 11-7.

"I had to burn two timeouts," Tozer said. "I just wanted to focus on calming down. I told them, 'We've still got the lead. Keep possession of the ball and play through it.' "

The Wave players took their coach's advice as they strangled the Edmonton offense the rest of the way. The Drillers inserted Dailly as a sixth attacker with about 4 minutes left but were unable to mount another rally.

Tirschman scored a crucial header goal at 11:52 of the third period, on an assist from Richardson, to boost the Wave's margin to a more comfortable six points.

"I don't think the regular season has a lot of bearing on the playoffs if you prepare," Tozer said. "It's no bigger than any other game we played all season long."

First quarter: 1. Milwaukee, Hattrup, restart goal, 14:08. 2. Milwaukee, Dusosky (Nogueira), 3-point goal, 14:32.

Second quarter: 3. Milwaukee, Dusosky (Morris), :08. 4. Milwaukee, Hattrup (Tirschman), 1:39.

Third quarter: 5. Milwaukee, Morris, restart goal, :13. 6. Edmonton, Vignjevic, 3-point restart goal, 5:33. 7. Edmonton, Vignjevic, 8:02. 8. Edmonton, Dailly (Hollimon), 8:50. 9. Milwaukee, Tirschman (Richardson), 11:52.

Fourth quarter: No scoring.

Summary: Shots - Milwaukee 24, Edmonton 55. Saves - Milwaukee 20 (Nogueira 20), Edmonton 6 (Larkin 6). Blocks - Milwaukee 32 (Richardson 5), Edmonton 12 (Rattee 3, Hollimon 3). Fouls - Milwaukee 24, Edmonton 23. A - 4,156. T - 2:05. Referees - Joe Rudy, Ron Cory.