The Philadelphia Wings let a strong first half lead slip away as the San Diego Seals came back to win 9-7 in Philadelphia on Friday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena. It drops their record to 1-5 and puts them in last place in the standings, while San Diego improves to 3-3 and are on a modest tw0-game win streak.
Philadelphia was looking strong going into the half. They scored twice in the first, with Joe Resetarits scoring on the power play followed by a Brennan O’Neill marker. In the second, Michael Sowers scored followed by another Resetarits power play. San Diego looked a little stunned as they only managed one goal in the half from Wes Berg.
Adjustments were made at halftime, and, true to the last few weeks, Philadelphia struggled to score goals in the second half. San Diego, apparently, was just testing the goal scoring waters in the first half, as they dove deep in the next two quarters scoring four times in each and eight of the last 10 goals o the game.
Head Coach Ian Rubel was calm in Philadelphia’s press conference. His main message was that the offense needs to score goals. And while perennial American star Joe Resetarits had a strong showing that was aided by Brennan O’Neill and Michael Sowers, it was not enough.
“We need to score more goals,” Rubel reiterated. “You can’t play a half of a lacrosse game and only score two goals. It’s unacceptable. The game plan was the same in the second half. We weren’t executing.”
And while the wings put up three goals in the second half, it was not enough to counter the herd of San Diego players eagerly looking to scoop up the pearly white balls and put them in the net.
Making this even harder for fans to digest was the solid play of Ben McIntosh and Trevor Baptiste—two former Philadelphia standouts who had solid games against their former team. McIntosh, fresh off the IR, tallied five points. Baptiste did his thing, going 12-20 on faceoffs.
The two teams meet again in San Diego this coming weekend.
