For the second time in two weekends, the Halifax Thunderbirds defeated the Philadelphia Wings, this time by a score of 13-10 at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax. They beat the Wings 14-10 last weekend in Philadelphia.
“They’re a good team, and I think we had a good plan in place. We stuck with it, and the ball was dropping for us,” said Thomas Hoggarth, who scored three goals and added two assists tonight for the Thunderbirds.
The win propels Halifax to a 5-4 record, tied for fourth in league standings with Calgary, Georgia and Ottawa. This is an impressive position for them to be in because they lost their first three games of the season. Since then, Halifax has won five out of six games to propel themselves to a winning record for the first time.
“You look at our first three games. We were up 11-4 on Calgary, and we were up by five on Saskatchewan and obviously Colorado (they lost that game 19-14), but I think we’re in every game. I think the last couple of games, we have just been figuring out a way to put wins together in the fourth quarter and the second half, which historically have not been our best quarters, and we have turned that around,” said Randy Staats. He led the Thunderbirds with two goals and seven assists and recorded his 600th career point.
“I think we always had it in the room,” said Hoggarth. “We had a couple of games where we dropped it at the end of the game when were in the lead. I think right now we’re playing a full sixty, and it’s coming together for us.”
Halifax opened the scoring six minutes in on the power play. Randy Staats passed the ball to Clarke Petterson at the top of the horseshoe and he fired it past Philadelphia’s goalie, Nick Damude. Hoggarth added another two minutes later to give Halifax an early 2-0 lead.
Philadelphia got on the board from a lucky bounce. A missed shot went off the glass and flew up the floor. Mike McCannell scooped up the ball but was chased down by Mike Robinson. McCannell managed to lean on Robinson to protect the ball and fired it past Halifax’s goalie, Warren Hill.
Mike Robinson and Philadelphia’s Phil Caputo rounded out the scoring in the first quarter, with Halifax up 3-2.
The back and forth continued in the second quarter. Philadelphia’s Mitch Jones and Halifax’s Cody Jamieson traded power-play goals. Afterwards, McCannell and Staats traded transition goals. The first half ended with Halifax up 5-4.
Mitch Jones came out hot to start the second half. He ran in on goal and received a pass from Holden Cattoni in the slot to score. Thirty seconds later, he passed the ball down to Blaze Riordan in front of the net for another goal. This gave Philadelphia their first lead of the game at 6-5 two minutes into the third quarter.
Ryan Terefenko continued his hot streak. While short-handed, he picked up a loose ball in the defensive zone and deked out the last player back, Mitch Jones, who lost his balance. This opened Terefenko to take off on a break-a-way and shoot the ball past Nick Damude’s glove. Terefenko also scored an empty net goal, which gave him two goals and three points on the night.
This is the third straight multi-point game for Ryan Terefenko. He scored back-to-back hat tricks against Vancouver and Philadelphia in the last two weeks. The transition specialist has eight goals and 14 points in his past three games. Terefenko came into the NLL four seasons ago with no box lacrosse experience. Now, the 26-year-old is one of the league’s most dangerous threats in transition.
“(Terefenko)’s so fast, right. And he’s always in transition, making the right decisions all the time and finding the back of the net. He’s playing great. He and Wiz (Withers) on the face-offs are doing great. I couldn’t be more proud of him,” said Staats.
“He’s catching me (in goals), and I don’t like it,” Staats added jokingly. He’s not wrong. Staats has 13 goals and Terefenko has 11.
Philadelphia answered to keep their lead. Michael Sowers ran for a rebound and dove over the crease to score. But while he was in the air, he collided with Thunderbirds defenceman Carter McKenzie. As McKenzie fell on Sowers, he used his elbow to push Sower’s head into the turf, receiving a major penalty, but remained in the game.
Mitch Jones scored on the power play to give Philadelphia an 8-6 lead. However, Halifax played great defence, only giving up one goal on the major penalty. The penalty kill was outstanding the whole game. Earlier in the quarter, Jake Withers received a double-minor for holding and slashing on the same play, and the Thunderbirds didn’t give up a goal. They held Philadelphia to the outside and Warren Hill came up with some big saves when needed. The Wings could have easily scored another few goals with those chances but Halifax’s defence kept them in the game.
“I think they play so tight, and Warren is back there blocking the shots. I think our defence does a good job picking off passes and stopping them from getting decent looks,” said Staats.
Halifax opened the scoring in the fourth quarter on the power play. Jason Knox passed it to Thomas Hoggarth as he was running into the slot and scored.
A minute-and-a-half later, Clarke Petterson tied the game at eight with a ridiculous goal. He was battling with McCannell and shielded the ball as he was forcing his way into the upper slot. Petterson fired a no-look behind-the-back shot that went into the top corner of the net to erupt the crowd.
“Clarke is a great player. We all know what he can do, but I don’t think anyone knew he was going to throw a backhand there, especially in that tight of a game. But it went in, so it was beautiful to see,” said Hoggarth.
Petterson wasn’t done. He passed it to Bo BowHunter for a goal for Halifax to regain the lead and scored a power-play goal to complete the hat trick.
With 4:37 left to play, Jason Knox had the ball right next to Halifax’s bench, and Ryan Wagner was running down on him. Knox was leaning over with his head down, and Wagner ran into him, directly hitting Knox’s head. Knox stayed down for a minute, left the game, and didn’t return. The team said he was alright after the game. Wagner was assessed a match penalty. Wagner’s hit didn’t look deliberate. More so that he ran into Knox’s head. With the direct head contact and an injury, the officials made the major call.
However, it was Philadelphia who was the most dangerous at the start of the penalty. Joe Resarities got open in the slot and scored to get the score to 10-9. Thirty seconds later, Liam Patten scored another shorthanded to tie the game at 10.
Halifax had the advantage of still being on the power play. Petterson passed the ball down to Staats on the right side and he scored to regain the one-goal lead.
With a minute left, Hoggarth received the ball in the slot, and he scored his third goal of the night. Terefenko scored the empty-net goal to seal the win with a big seven-goal effort in the fourth quarter. Four of those goals were on the power play. Six of Halifax’s 12 goals, with a goalie in the net, were on the power play.
“We have tons of good shooters in the front, so it’s hard to stop one guy when we have five good shooters out there,” said Hoggarth on the success of the power play.
Nick Damude stopped 50/63 shots for the Wings, while Warren Hill stopped 30/40 shots for the Thunderbirds. The loss brings down Philadelphia’s record to 5-5. They travel to Albany on Saturday to play the FireWolves. Halifax heads to Ottawa on Friday to take on the Black Bears.
