The Panther City Lacrosse Club was on the prowl in Philadelphia Sunday afternoon, clipping the Wings with an overtime 9-8 win. The loss drops Philadelphia’s record to 4-7.
Wings’ head coach and general manager Paul Day reflected on the loss, stating, “I don’t think we’re ever concerned about our effort with our group. Offensively, it was real stale, I thought, until the third quarter. I thought Sammy (Sam LeClair) really got us going there after not scoring on the power play.”
Unfortunately for the Wings, they could not finish the game with a victory.
Panther City started off strong with a quick goal from Will Malcom. Ben McIntosh answered back, but Jonathan Donville scored again for the Panther City Lacrosse Club to round out the first quarter 2-1.
The second was a repeat of the first quarter with PCLC scoring twice goals to Philadelphia’s one goal. Phil Caputo and Ryan Sheridan, who scooped a ball off the boards and dunked it, scored for PCLC, while Blaze Riorden tallied the lone point for Philadelphia.
In the third, Malcom started the scoring again. The Wings then went on a scoring run, finding the back of the net three straight times to tie the game 5-5. Goals from Holden Cattoni, McIntosh and Sam LeClair sent the Wings soaring into the last quarter.
Each team scored three times in the fourth. PCLC had goals in a row from Malcom, Sheridan and Donville for an 8-5 lead. Philadelphia answered back with three of their own to send the game into overtime. Resetarits scored two in a row, both assisted by Holden Cattoni, before McIntosh buried the ball in the back of the net on a power play with 31 seconds left, forcing the game into overtime.
Ben McIntosh has been playing brilliantly recently for the Wings. From moving up in the record books with his 300th point, to leading the team while wearing the “A,” the change has been remarkable. It is like he found his zone again. He reflected on the end of the game, saying “it was tough in the last five minutes, we had two penalties called on us.” He also recognized that “as an offense, we have so many guys who can score.”
Overtime began with a lot of back-and forth-play. There were plenty of shots and missed opportunities but in the end, Caputo preyed on Higgins and the Panther City Lacrosse Club came out victorious.
Scoring was something the Wings seemed to struggle with in this game, which is slightly perplexing given the amount of guys who can regularly find the net. It appears that when the Wings can have all the offensive players on the same page, they’ll be able to put up big numbers. Unfortunately injuries and lineup changes have prevented that from happening so far. And like McIntosh said, “no one cares about how many goals you get. They care about how many championships you’ve won.”
