Joe Howie scored his first goal for Widnes in the game against Whitley (Photo by Keith & Jenny Davies)
Sunday 1st December 2024 – NIHL Moralee Division: Widnes Wild 1 – Whitley Warriors 4
The Widnes Wild NIHL team put in a spirited performance against high flying Whitley Warriors before ultimately losing out 1-4 at Planet Ice Widnes on Sunday.
Having beaten local rivals Deeside Dragons away in North Wales last weekend, the Wild were hoping to build up some sort of run after a disappointing start to the season and this game was pretty close all the way through until Whitley pulled away in the latter stages.
The face off was delayed by 15 minutes because the Whitley team had traffic problems on their way down from the North East and the game didn’t start until 5.45pm.
It remained goal-less until Whitley opened the scoring on 15 minutes and a second goal on 18 minutes saw them leading 0-2 at the first period break.
Widnes had their chances in the second period as the Warriors picked up a number of penalties – but they were unable to make the most of their powerplay opportunities and the score remained 0-2 at the second interval.
The Wild pressure did eventually pay off, however, and they finally managed to halve the deficit with their first goal of the game early in the third period, with summer signing Joe Howie scoring his first goal for the club.
Unfortunately, they got into penalty trouble as they pushed forward trying to force an equaliser and conceded a 5 on 3 powerplay goal with 9 minutes left to play. Another powerplay goal 2 minutes later saw Widnes 1-4 down and that was the last scoring action of the game.
The result sees Widnes rooted to the bottom of the Moralee Division table with 5 points from their 16 games to date. They are 5 points behind fellow strugglers Leeds Knights and Sheffield Scimitars, who both have 10 points and have played more games. With Nottingham Lions a rather distant 11 points further ahead than that in 7th place, it looks as if the battle for the 8th place and the final play off spot will be between those three teams.
Widnes have yet to play Nottingham this season - so have four matches against them to look forward to - and they also have two more games against both Sheffield and Leeds to come so there is still plenty to play for as the Moralee Division campaign reaches its half way point.
The Wild have now three away games in a row – away to Solihull Barons this Saturday 7th December - 5.30pm face off - and then Sheffield on Saturday 14th December and Blackburn on Sunday 15th.
They are a next at home on the last weekend before Christmas when they play Deeside Dragons on Saturday 21st December and Sheffield Scimitars the following day in a mouth-watering double header at Planet Ice Widnes.
