Wings Drop a Close One in San Diego

San Diego, CA – The Philadelphia Wings scored the first six goals of the second half to turn a 7-4 deficit into a 10-7 lead, but the San Diego Seals recovered with a fourth-quarter burst and took a 13-11 win at Pechanga Arena in San Diego in the only meeting of the year between the two expansion teams. Josh Currier had three goals and four assists for a seven-point night, Kevin Crowley had three goals and three assists and Kiel Matisz had two goals and four assists to lead the charge for Philadelphia.

The teams were even at 3-3 after the first quarter. The Wings allowed two goals in the span of 22 seconds early on, but Crowley scored 36 seconds after that to stop the momentum. After another Seals goal with 4:40 left, Currier and Matisz grabbed late tallies to knot the score.

San Diego then outscored the Wings 4-1 in the second stanza, starting with consecutive goals from Dan Dawson, who finished with five goals and seven points on the night. The flurry gave San Diego a 7-4 halftime lead.

But the Wings came out at full speed for the third quarter, scoring six consecutive goals over the third and first 2:22 of the fourth. They had the only tallies of the third quarter, with Matisz, Crowley, Matt Rambo and Matthew Bennett all finding the back of the net. Then Crowley and Guterding scored the early fourth-quarter goals to give the Wings a 10-7 lead that lasted until the final five minutes of the contest.

It was at that point that San Diego found another gear. The Seals scored four times in less than three minutes to go up 11-10 with 2:03 left in the fourth quarter. Currier tied the score with 1:38 to play, but Seals leading scorer Austin Staats scored the game-winner 26 seconds later and set up an insurance goal by Turner Evans with 28 seconds to play.

Doug Buchan took the loss for the Wings with 41 saves on 54 shots. Frank Scigliano was the winning netminder for San Diego, making 34 saves.