The Bespoke Guardians Swindon Wildcats garnered two consecutive victories for the second time in this year against league leaders Telford Tigers, and against the Slough Bees IHC.
Image credit - Kat Medcroft
Words by Ben Callaghan
The Bespoke Guardians Swindon Wildcats were thrilled to get back to back wins for only the second time in 2022, thanks to a huge win against league leaders Telford Tigers on Saturday before travelling down the M4 on Sunday to defeat the Bees.
The results see the Wildcats maintain their grip on second place in the NIHL National League with just four games of the regular season left to play.
On Saturday night in Swindon, the Telford Tigers came to town and the visitors knew a win on Swindon ice would be enough to secure the league title for the Shropshire side. Things didn’t get off to the best start when at 04:33 the Wildcats took the lead.
Some good work from the Cats third line saw Reed Sayers throw a puck through for Jack Goodchild to pounce on. The young British forward was through on goal and was able to fire under the arm of Brad Day to score his third goal of the league season, and give the home side a 1-0 lead.
At 9:35 Swindon doubled their advantage, this time with a well worked powerplay goal. Eddie Bebris and Chris Jones combined for Emil Svec to unleash a rocket of a shot past Day to make it 2-0, which is how it stayed for the remainder of the first period.
Early on in the middle stanza the Tigers reduced the lead to a single goal when Austin Mitchell-King was able to tip a Corey Goodison shot high above Renny Marr to make it 2-1 at 24:10.
Little did the fans know at the time but this would be the final scoring of the game, but as the remainder of the game went on both Renny Marr and Brad Day had to work hard to ensure the scoreline remained as it did. With only four shots a-piece in the final period the game ended and for at least another night, the Tigers would be prevented from taking the title back to Telford with them.
On Sunday, Aaron Nell and his team travelled to Slough for their final match up with the Bees in regular season action. Whilst being outshot 29-25 over the course of the evening, they did come away with two points thanks to a man of the match performance by Emil Svec.
At the end of the first period it was the Bees who held the narrow advantage when Juha Lindgren was able to slide the puck under Renny Marr at 09:58.
Early in the middle period the Cats were able to pounce and tie the game up through Head Coach Aaron Nell. The initial 2-on-1 breakaway with Jack Goodchild initially looked like it would come to nothing before the young brit slid the puck back across the crease for Nell to fire home and make it 1-1 at 23:28.
The Wildcats would then go to work on two clinical powerplays within the last two minutes of the second period. Firstly, with two Bees players in the box, the 5-on-3 move worked well as Emil Svec was able to switch the play to Aaron Nell to slam home from the right wing and make it 1-2 at 38:46.
With another player still in the box, the Cats made good use of the man advantage once more at 39:21, this time when Aaron Nell turned from scorer to provider and handed the puck over to his captain Sam Bullas who redirected the puck to make it 1-3, the scoreline staying the same after 40 minutes of hockey.
In the final period, it really was a 20-minute spell of two halves. Some good work down low behind the goal from Chris Jones and Eddie Bebris saw the puck slide back to Emil Svec at the top of the crease who was able to score the Wildcats fourth goal of the night.
At 48:58 the visitors made it 1-5 when Chris Jones and Eddie Bebris linked up again, only for this time the Welsh forward to put the puck under Goss, all of this happening for a shorthanded goal.
Late on the in the final period, the Bees added two goals from Ryan Webb at 49:27, and Josh Martin at 55:53 but none of these would prove to be more than consolation goals as the game finished with Swindon taking the win back to Wiltshire with them.
This upcoming weekend will see the Wildcats compete in the penultimate weekend of the regular season with a Friday night trip to Basingstoke before hosting the playoff chasing Raiders on Saturday at the Link Centre.
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