Wolves Rally to Defeat Nationals

By Jay Harris

Watertown, NY - Still riding on the excitement from last night's victory, the Watertown Wolves and Head Coach Phil Esposito looked to continue their winning streak when they faced the Cornwall Nationals at the Watertown Municipal Ice Arena. The Wolves were down two forwards as Mark Petaccio was serving a one-game, third-man suspension for coming to the defense of a fellow teammate in an altercation, and Brad Townsend was out with an injury.

The shorter bench didn't stop the Wolves from getting on the board. Team captain Brett Liscomb went top shelf on goalie Nicolas Delongchamps to give the Wolves the first goal of the game. The period saw only one penalty and that was doled out to Watertown's Colby Spooner for cross checking. The Wolves did not let being a man down affect them and they were able to kill the power play. The period would end with the lone goal from Watertown.

The Wolves held strong for most of the second period. Cornwall's Sylvester Bzdyl heaved the puck past Goalie Danila Allistratov to tie the game at 1. The Wolves would not let the goal get to them and held strong the remainder of the period, killing another power play when Brett Liscomb was served a delay of game penalty.

It looked like the Wolves might be losing steam when Cornwall's Marley Keca bounced the puck off the pipe to put the Nationals up 2-1. It seemed Watertown was going to tie it up in the thirteenth minute. A shot went off and crossed the line as Delongchamps knocked the net off that it landed in. The Wolves' ire at the call only pushed them harder and they rallied in the next minute when Jesse Facchini tickled twine with the assistance of Stanislav Vlasov and Ryan Connolly. Kyle Powell would put the Wolves back in the lead when Colin Mcintosh and Bret Liscomb set him to slap the puck in the net. The Wolves held on to end the game with a 3-2 victory.

Coach Phil Esposito had the following comments after the game, "We had a good weekend. We got our veterans on the team now and they are taking control. They are leading the rookies and getting the job done. The guys earned us six points and moved us up in the standings."

First star of the game was earned by Kyle Powell, Brett Liscomb received honors with the second star, and Jesse Facchini racked up the third star of the game. Watertown has moved up to fourth place in the Federal Hockey League standings. The Wolves will be back in action at the Watertown Municipal Ice Arena on Friday, December 30 when they face the Berlin River Drivers. The puck will drop at 7:30