Wings sluggish in home opener loss

By Tom Hoffman

9,462 Philadelphia Wings fanatics were pumped up as they awaited the Wings home opener last night at the Wachovia Center. Afterwards it was hard to tell who was flatter, the fans or the Wings offense. The Wings struggled all evening as they fell to the expansion Boston Blazers 13-11 while also seeing Athan Iannucci go down to a possible re-injured knee early in the first quarter.

"Give credit to Boston, they played with a lot of energy," Wings coach Dave Huntley said. "They just played better than we did."

Even with Iannucci out on the floor the offense still seemed to struggle. The Wings didn't get on the board until the 11:07 mark of the first on a David Mitchell score. At that point it was Daryl Veltman 3, Wings 0 as the Blazers rookie was living up to his selection as the NLL's top pick in the entry draft. Philly trailed 4-1 after the first but quickly tied the game at 4 with Mitchell's second tally of the night sandwiched by scores from Merrick Thomson and Drew Westervelt. Boston would score three of the next four to take a 7-5 lead into halftime.

After Brett Queener scored 31 seconds into the third to give the Blazers an 8-5 lead, the Wings scored the next four to take their only lead of the night. Jordan Levine won't forget his first NLL goal as he picked up Anthony Cosmo's rebound of a Shawn Nadelen shot to put Philadelphia up 9-8. Boston got the the last two goals of the third to lead 10-9 and Mitch Belisle only needed 10 seconds to make the score 11-9 in the fourth. In the third Belisle had drawn the ire of the Wings Geoff Snider with a submarine hit in front of the Blazers bench that touched off a small fracas. The Wings would tie the game one last time when Mat Giles scored his third goal of the night followed by Westervelt's third of the game just 29 seconds later. Boston's Gary Bining would score the game winner at 7:15 of the fourth (his third goal of the night) before Veltman finished the scoring and sent the Wings fans running to the exits.

For the Wings, there is very little time to dwell on the loss as they face the Blazers again this evening in Boston. Huntley feels the team will respond.

"I think we'll bounce back," Huntley said. "I don't think anybody was pleased with their performance tonight."

One Wing who did play well was G Brandon Miller, who made 45 saves in the cage. Westervelt and Giles each had three goals and two assists to lead the Wings while Veltman (4G, 3A) and Dan Dawson (7 assists) led the Blazers. For former Wing and current Blazers coach Tom Ryan, it was his first win as an NLL coach in one of his favorite places to play.

"It's definitely fun to be back here," Ryan said. "It feels like home. It's just good to get a win anyway you can."