2010 Wings Lacrosse Game 14 (at Rochester 4-10-10)

By Tom Hoffman

The Philadelphia Wings (4-9) will look to get back in the win column when they begin their final road swing of 2010 with a game in Rochester against the Knighthawks on Saturday evening. Faceoff at Blue Cross Arena is at 7:30 and the game can be seen live on the NLL Network.

History

The Wings are 15-19 in regular season play against the Knighthawks, including this season's earlier meeting, a 12-6 Rochester victory at the Wachovia Center on February 20. Last season the Wings were 1-1 at the BCA, winning 16-13 on January 10, 2009 and dropping the season finale on April 18, 2009 11-8. All time in Rochester the Wings are 5-11 and have lost six of the last seven visits.

Last Week

Any momentum the Wings had gained during their two game win streak came to a halt when they fell 13-6 at home Saturday against the Toronto Rock. Geoff Snider led the Wings with two goals and Kyle Wailes added three assists while Rookie of the Year candidate Stephan LeBlanc had a ten point evening (5G, 5A) for the Rock. Rochester dropped their fourth straight game last Saturday, losing 11-9 at home against the Calgary Roughnecks. The Knighthawks will open this weekend with a Friday night matchup on the road against the Minnesota Swarm.

Wings Leaders

Goals: Drew Westervelt - 25

Assists: Westervelt - 35

Points: Westervelt - 60 (tied for 15th in league)

Loose Balls: Geoff Snider - 194

Power Play Goals: Kyle Wailes - 6

Next Game

The Wings play their final road game of the 2010 season when they travel to St. Paul, Minnesota to face off against the Swarm on April 17.

Wings done in by LeBlanc, Rock

By Tom Hoffman

Between Garrett Billings and Stephan LeBlanc, the Toronto Rock should easily take home the National Lacrosse League's rookie of the year honors. Based on his play against the Wings in 2010, LeBlanc would seem to the hand down choice. After putting up nine points in the Rock's 19-11 win over Philly earlier this season, LeBlanc was even better Saturday night scoring five goals and dishing out five assists to lead Toronto to a convincing 13-6 win over the Wings, silencing the Wings modest two game win streak and any playoff momentum that might have followed.

The game was very low scoring in the first half, Toronto scoring the game first four goals before the Wings Pat Heim stopped the shutout with 5:23 left before halftime. Toronto continued to pour it on in the second half making the score 6-1 just over two minutes into the third quarter before the Wings tried to show some life on scores from Kevin Huntley and Geoff Snider. By the time the Wings got goal number four for the evening, the Rock took complete command of the game, going up 11-3 and chasing Wings keeper Brandon Miller after the tenth goal while sending many of the 10, 246 in attendance to the exits. The Wings would score three of the games final five goals but the result was never in doubt for Toronto.

Geoff Snider and Miller may have been the Wings lone bright spots, Snider with two goals and Miller making 32 saves before yielding to Rob Blasdell. For the Wings, it's off to Rochester next week to face a squad struggling just as badly as the Wings are.

Inside the Game

By Kevin Neibauer

After a spirited fight-filled Wings win over their division rivals, the Boston Blazers, I had the opportunity to get insight from several of the key players. Keep in mind five fights, several game misconducts, stitched up players and cheapshots by Boston dominated the evening. So, without further ado, let's hear from Coach Dave Huntley.

KMN- Your thoughts tonight?

DH- "I thought we carried over from the way we played against Minnesota. We had a real good first half...our guys kept working. I think we are playing pretty good right now."

On the extracurriculars:

"I'll be honest with you, I think it was unfortunate. Tom Ryan has never had a fight in his life and he sends out his guys to try to intimidate us."

Obviously agitated, Coach Huntley continued. "I am against fighting in this sport. It's terrible, it was an embarrasment. This isn't a circus out there, this is a game. I could have understood it if it wasn't for the fact that Tom (Ryan) never got into a fight in his entire career, I could have respected it a bit."


KMN- Some of the Boston players like to fight with their helmets on.

DH- "That's a shame because they have a lot of quality guys on the team. But when a guy gets jumped by another guy who leaves his helmet on that's pretty bad."

Switching gears.

KMN- Drew Westervelt, what about his performance tonight?

DH- "He was terrific. He had to carry the load in the beginning of the season, having to be the Number One guy scoring wise. He has been on fire the last four games"

On to Bill McGlone. McGlone enjoyed his best game as a Wing, albeit only playing a little over one half. McGlone was one of the guys that was jumped by a guy who refused to remove his helmet.

BM- "Three guys were pushing Kyle Wailes so I just tried to help my teammate. My helmet got knocked off, took a fist to the left eye, now I am in a fight. It took a bit to get my feet under me, plus I couldn't get his helmet off. I threw punches but it's hard to hurt him when his helmet is on."

Note- Bill was one of at least three players that received stitches after the festivities. McGlone was sporting a cut under his eye, Tom Hajek cut his scalp (This was believed to be equipment related) and Boston player Paul Dawson also received stitches to the scalp. Dawson and Geoff Snider went toe to toe for hat amounted to be a long battle which Snider won the decision.

The diminutive Jordan Levine also got involved in the action scoring a TKO against a much larger Boston player. Taylor Wray was the final Wings combatant.

Athan Iannucci was in the building and reported that he has received clearance from doctors to begin running. To prove his point at the post game gathering, AI hurdled two restraints and took off running in the concourse.

Brandon Miller just gets better and better each week, this week he was awarded the Defensive Player of the Week Award for his efforts.

Speaking of Bill "The Thrill" McGlone, the Ridley native had a nifty goal to start the second half off a creative feed from Geoff Snider. Snider won the face-off, sprinted to the net and fired what appeared to be a high shot over Goaltender, Anthony Cosmo. However, it was a designed play that Snider and McGlone cooked up. McGlone went behind the net and took the pass/shot and slam dinked the ball behind Cosmo.

DID YOU NOTICE? Kevin Huntley scoring from his back after nearly being decapitated? Many former Wings in attendance? Tom Marechek hung out post game was chatted and signed autographs for quite awhile, Jake Bergey looks like he is thinner than when he was playing, he looks to be in great shape. Max Seibald is beginning to show why the Wings traded for him. Max was hitting everyone and really involved in the play all evening.

2010 Wings Lacrosse Game 13 (vs Toronto 4-3-10)

By Tom Hoffman

Coming off two huge wins at home, the Philadelphia Wings (4-8) will look to stay on their current roll and keep hopes alive for the postseason when they host the Toronto Rock (6-6) Saturday evening at 7 PM. The game will be shown live on the NLL Network.

History

The Wings are 9-18 all-time against the Rock including this season's first meeting, a 19-11 Toronto victory on February 5 at the Air Canada Centre. At home the Wings are 6-8 against the Rock having won the last four meetings in Philadelphia.

Last Week

The Wings, for the second straight game, used a big second half to win a fight filled contest 13-7 against the Boston Blazers last Saturday at the Wachovia Center before a season high crowd of 11,241. Drew Westervelt led the Wings with seven points (3G, 4A) while Bill McGlone and Dan Teat each added two goals. Brandon Miller made 36 saves and held Boston to two scores in the second half. Toronto lost their fifth straight game when they dropped a 10-8 decision Saturday at Orlando.

Makeup

The Wings announced that their game with Orlando that had been postponed on February 6 due to the snowstorm that hit the Philadelphia area will be made up on April 25 at 5 PM.

Stats

Wings record when scoring first: 3-5

Wings record when leading after the first qtr.: 1-3

Wings record when leading at halftime: 3-1

Wings record when leading after 3 qtrs.: 4-0

Wings record when outshooting opponent: 4-3

Next Game

The Wings return to the road when they travel to Rochester to face the Knighthawks on April 10.

Wings earn hard "fought" win over Blazers

By Tom Hoffman

In only their second season, the Boston Blazers have become quite a heated, and maybe hated, rival to the Philadelphia Wings. This was never more evident Saturday night at the Wachovia Center where the Wings defeated the Blazers 13-7 in a fight filled game in front of a season high crowd of 11,241.

"I thought we carried over the way we played against Minnesota," Wings Coach Dave Huntley said. "I think we're playing pretty good right now."

The first quarter was a seesaw affair with Boston opening the scoring courtesy of Dan Dawson. Bill McGlone tied the score and the teams would then trade scores with the Blazers leading 3-2 after the opening 15. The end of the quarter gave a brief glimpse of how the night would finish out when Geoff Snider again tried to get at Boston's Mitch Belisle, Snider still upset over hits from Belisle in last season's meetings. The teams continued trading goals in the second and Boston held a 5-4 advantage at halftime.

For the second time this season against Boston, and second game in a row, the second half completely belonged to the Wings. Philly would outscore the Blazers 4-1 in the third and took an 8-6 lead into the final stanza. The fight card would also begin here when the Wings' McGlone and Boston's Kyle Ross went at it, each getting fighting majors and game misconducts from referee Mark Gardonio. The Wings would blow the game open in the fourth outscoring Boston 5-1 and chasing Blazers goalie Anthony Cosmo. The game would also continue to get chippy and with the outcome no longer in doubt the gloves would be dropped with the Wings Jordan Levine standing up to Boston's Jon Harnett. Three seconds after the Levine scrap, Snider finally got into it with the Blazers Paul Dawson, getting many good shots in against a bigger opponent. While this was going on, Dan Dawson would square off with the Wings' Taylor Wray and Wings captain Thomas Hajek and Boston's Jack Reid would go toe to toe. These bouts, and a huge win, would send the Wing faithful home very happy.

"I think they got a little frustrated," Levine said. "Some frustrations boiled over in the end, we didn't back down. We wanted to keep our cool, once we had the game in hand then we let our emotions out."

Drew Westervelt led the Wings with seven points on three goals and four assists while Brandon Miller had another strong second half holding the Blazers to a pair of scores while making 36 saves on the night. With the win the Wings improve to 4-8 and because of the logjam of teams in the East at 6-6, the Wings find themselves still in contention for a postseason berth. Tonight's victory gives the Wings the tiebreaker against Boston and earns them some revenge after they were swept the the Blazers in 2009.

Wray would sum up the Wings recent play and this game in general quite nicely.

"We're playing hard, we're playing together," Wray said. "We've been able to put together some good performances for a full 60 minutes. When you can do that you have an opportunity to win games. It was a good old fashioned lacrosse game tonight, it was nice to be on the winning side of it."