Wild Cruise To 22nd Win Behind 3-Goal First Period
December 30, 2012 - North American Hockey League (NAHL)
Wenatchee Wild News Release
WENATCHEE, Wash. - Wenatchee Wild head coach Bliss Littler promised his team wouldbe better in the second game of this weekend's 3-game series against the KenaiRiver Brown Bears after a 5-3 loss Friday in the first game of the series. Hewas right. The Wild scored three first-period goals Saturday and never lookedback, earning their 22nd win of the season with a 5-2 victory.
The Wild took a 3-0 lead Saturday before the 3,407 fans inattendance even had time to settle into their seats. Josh Hartley (Coquitlam, British Columbia) scored Wenatchee's firstgoal 3:54 into the contest when he tickled the twine on a wrist shot from thenear point after David Powlowski (Rochester,N.Y.) won a faceoff in the Kenai River zone. Blake Roubos (Niagara Falls, Ontario) also assisted on the scoringsequence.
Jono Davis (LaVerne, Calif.) scored his team-leading 20th goal of the season 1:20 afterHartley opened scoring to increase Wenatchee's lead to 2-0. Davis, who ended a3-game pointless streak on the goal, scored one-on-one from in front of theKenai River cage after he took advantage of a turnover that was created by aneffective forecheck. Brian Williams(San Diego, Calif.) was credited with the lone assist.
The Wild took a commanding 3-0 lead 31 seconds after Davis'goal when Evan Schmidbauer (Surrey,British Columbia) rifled in his seventh goal of the season from the nearfaceoff dot on a feed from Dylan Abood(Centennial, Colo.).
"It was a good start," Littler said. "We had some bounces goour way, and we hardly gave up any 5-on-5 shots. Five-one-five, we didn't giveup much at all."
The Brown Bears clawed back into the game early in thesecond period when Matthew Meier ended RobertNichols' (Dallas, Texas) shutout bid when he scored off of Conor Deal'sfeed to cut Wenatchee's lead down to 3-1.
The Wild regained their 3-goal lead 55 seconds into thefinal stanza when Max McHugh (Edgewood,Wash.) gathered a rebound and scored on his backhand. Noah Nelson (Oconomowoc, Wis.) assisted.
Matt Seidel finished off a 2-on-1 chance for the Brown Bearswith a little less than seven minutes in regulation to make it a 4-2 game, but theWild got that goal back late in the third period when Nathan Flynn (Hastings, Minn.) scored an unassisted marker.
Evan McCarthy and Gustaf Johansson combined to make 27 saveson 32 shots for the Brown Bears. Nichols made 19 saves on 21 shots to improvehis season record to 18-4-2. Nichols needs just six more wins to match his totalof 24 during his rookie campaign with the Wild last season.
Neither team was able to score a power-play goal Saturday.Wenatchee went 0-for-3 on the man-advantage while Kenai River went 0-for-6.
The Wild (22-4-2) and Brown Bears will take the day offSunday before concluding their 3-game series on New Year's Eve Monday. Faceoffis slated for 6:05 p.m. Tickets can purchased by calling 509.888.PUCK (7825).
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