The Philadelphia Wings are flying high after testing their luck against the Las Vegas Desert Dogs and landing a 10-8 victory over the weekend.
The third quarter made all the difference for the Wings. And although it was a low-scoring, scrappy battle, the Wings are grateful to be back to their winning ways—and so are their fans.
“We stuck to our game plan here and got outstanding performances from our goalie and our defense,” praised Mitch Jones after the game. :We were able to put the ball in enough tonight to get the win.”
Sam LeClair started the scoring for Philadelphia. Joe Resetarits quickly followed with his first of two goals of the quarter. The Desert Dogs fired back with one from Casey Jackson and another from Jack Hannah. Joe Resetarits scored again (on the power play) before James Barclay finished out the first quarter.
The second quarter saw a reverse of the first. The Desert Dogs scored two to start: Zack Greer scored for Las Vegas followed shortly thereafter by Adrian Sorichetti. Those goals seemed to ignite something on the Philadelphia bench, as Resetarits scored his third and then his fourth goals of the night before the Desert Dogs netted one by rookie Dylan Watson. Not to be outdone, Ben McIntosh found the back of the net with just over four minutes left in the half.
Quarter three saw goals exchanged by Chad Tutton and Rob Hellyer before Philadelphia went on a run with goals by Taite Cattoni and Ben McIntosh. Tensions seemed to build as both teams fought doggedly to secure a win. In the fourth, Joe Resetarits scored his fifth goal of the night to tie his career high. Watson scored his second of the night but it was not enough to lift Las Vegas over Philadelphia.
Although left out of the scoring column, Mitch Jones continued to shine in the assist column, contributing eight assists in the contest, which was a season high for him.
“Guys are moving off ball and guys are catching and shooting. When you’re passing to guys like Rezzy and Benny, all the credit goes to them,” Jones said.
The game was truly a battle of the goalies. Zach Higgins stopped 38 shots for Philadelphia while Landon Kells stopped 32 for Las Vegas. In at least two cases, a defender became a goalie. What was particularly impressive was Wagner’s double shot block at the end of the fourth quarter, saving two potential goals. Higgins was a wall against a two-minute penalty with multiple shots at the end of the game.
“We had a tough start to the season,” Jones reflected.” You can pull out some excuses or whatnot. The fact is that we were 2-5. We needed this one to stay in the hunt.”
The Wings will look to build on this win when they visit Calgary Saturday night at 9 p.m. ET. The Desert Dogs visit Rochester at 7 p.m.
