Saturday 4th March – Moralee Division
YKK Widnes Wild 5 – Whitley Warriors 2
The YKK sponsored Widnes Wild put in an inspired performance to beat high flying Whitley Warriors 5-2 at Planet Ice Widnes on Saturday.
The Warriors had previously been the Wild’s bogey team, as they had never managed to beat them in 9 meetings but a good solid all round team performance has finally put that particular hoodoo to bed.
Widnes took the lead after 8 minutes with a goal from Dani Haid but Whitley levelled 6 minutes later. Haid scored again with 70 seconds left on the clock and Widnes took a slender but deserved 2-1 lead into the first break.
A third goal for Widnes – scored by Jacob Corson-Heron just 56 seconds from the restart – put a bit of daylight between the teams and some of the spark seemed to go out of the Whitley attack.
The Warriors continued to threaten, however, and over the course of the game outshot the Wild by 48 to 24 but Miles Finney was, once again, outstanding in the Widnes goal to keep the visitors at bay.
Player coach Joey Coulter made it 4-1 with a goal on 29 minutes and, although both teams had their chances, that remained the score at the end of the second period.
The third period was very tense with the Wild keen not to let their hard earned lead slip. As the clock ticked down, tensions began to build and, in what had been an almost penalty free game, both teams started to pick up niggly sanctions.
It took until the 53rd minute for the next goal and that went to Whitley as they took advantage of a powerplay advantage for a Wild tripping call to narrow the score to 4-2 but that was as good as things got for the visitors.
There was no late comeback and a goal from Mikey Gilbert with 3 minutes left on the clock made sure of the win for the Wild.
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