Home Opener Win for the Wings

The Philadelphia Wings (2-1) finally host their first home game of the 2020 season against the Vancouver Warriors (1-2) at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA.

The Wings would take a quick 2-0 lead early in the first quarter, the first goal was score by Kevin Crowley with Blaze Riorden and Josh Currier setting up for the assists. The Wings second goal was scored by Brett Hickey.

Vancouver would then respond with two goals themselves before the first quarter would end, the first goal was scored by Riley Lowen and the second goal was scored by Jordan McBride. Wings player, Alex Pace, would also get penalized for an illegal substitution 5 minutes before the quarter ended.

The second quarter would prove to be much more exciting, between both teams, a total of 9 goals were scored compared to just the 4 in the first quarter. The first 4 goals were scored by the Wings. The first one was within seconds the second quarter started, that goal was scored by Trevor Baptiste then another goal from Riorden. Josh Currier would then score back to back goals.

Vancouver would end the Wing’s goal streak with Justin Salt scoring to make the game 6-3 at this point. The Wings will strike back with two more back to back goals from Cory Vitarelli making the game 8-3. Before the first half will end, Vancouver will get two more goals coming from McBride and Joel McCready. The Wings will get one goal back seconds before the half ended, a beautiful goal scored by Hickey. The score at halftime is 9-5 with the Wings up.

Both teams will keep up with the intensity into the third quarter. Although the Wings will strike first and quick like they have been all game. The first goal came from yet another goal from Currier who would strike in the first 30 seconds of the half. Hickey would score his third goal of the game for the Wings to put them up 11-5 early in the third quarter. Mitch Jones and Vancouver would respond with one goal but that wouldn’t be enough to stop the Wing’s momentum as they would score 4 consecutive goals. The first one was by Riorden who was already having a great game. The second goal was scored by Crowley. The third and fourth goal was scored by Baptiste and Currier, this would make the score of the game 15-6 with the Wings starting to pull away with the lead. Vancouver would then take a goal right before the third quarter would end; the goal was scored by McCready thus making the score 15-7 after three quarters of play.

The fourth quarter is where the Wings would hold up and prove they were the better team all game. First, they didn’t keep their foot off the gas by scoring three goals in the final quarter and only keeping Vancouver to three goals too. The three Wings goals were scored by Crowley, then by Steph Charbonneau, and the final goal was scored by Riorden. Vancouver’s goals were scored by Chris O’Dougherty, Jones, and then McCready. The final score of the game was 18-10, Wings winning the game.

With this home opener win, the Wings improve to a 3-1 record heading into next week where they will play back to back games. The first one will be at New England as they will visit the Black Wolves. The Wings will then head back home to host the Rochester Nighthawks at the Wells Fargo Center.

Eric Williamson

Eric Williamson is the host of the Union podcast Full Time Philly and also contrinutes to many of the Union coverage. He is a huge fan of all the 4 major Philly teams on top of music too.