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| Johno Williamson and Mikey Gilbert in action away at Blackburn (Photo by Steve Pollitt) |
Saturday 8th February 2025 – NIHL Moralee Division: Blackburn Hawks 4 – Widnes Wild 2
Sunday 9th February 2025 – NIHL Moralee Division: Widnes Wild 1 – Billingham Stars 3
The Widnes Wild NIHL team had a tough weekend, taking on the top two teams in the league, losing 8-2 away to Blackburn Hawks on Saturday and 1-3 at home to Billingham Stars at Planet Ice Widnes on Sunday.
Blackburn never really looked like losing on Saturday and went ahead with goals from former Wild player Adam Barnes and promising teenager Daragh Spawforth. A goal from Andrew Hopkins on 18 minutes halved the deficit for Widnes and the score stood at 2-1 at the first period break.
The Hawks scored 4 unanswered goals in the second period to put the game well beyond Widnes’ reach and added two more in the third. A late strike from Matty Barlow with three minutes left on the clock gave the travelling fans something to cheer about but the game finished in a convincing 8-2 win for Blackburn.
While the result on Saturday may have been somewhat predictable, the game on Sunday certainly wasn’t as the Wild put in a barnstorming performance against the league leaders.
Widnes played out of their skins – clearly rattling the Billingham Stars - and for much of the game, it was hard to tell that there were 8 league places - and 58 points - between the two teams.
After a tense opening, Billingham eventually took the lead and the score remained at a very tight 0-1 at the first period break.
The Widnes attacking efforts were finally rewarded on 25 minutes when captain Andrew Hopkins fired in a rebound off a Matty Barlow shot to equalise with a powerplay goal and despite numerous chances at both ends, the teams remained locked at 1-1 after two periods.
This was the closest that the Wild had been against any of the top teams all season and it really looked as if an upset might be on the cards as the score remained 1-1 heading into the final 10 minutes.
The tension around the Planet Ice rink was electrifying as the extremely vocal Widnes support urged their team on. Unfortunately, it was not to be and two late goals secured the win for the Stars.
Despite the disappointing end result, there was nothing to fault about the Wild performance. Paul Maudsley played an absolute blinder in goal, having been given his first start in the Widnes net after a number of back-up stints, and went on to be deservedly awarded the MVP for the Wild.
Talking afterwards about the two weekend games, Mikey Gilbert said:
"We were going into an extremely tough weekend against the top 2 teams as major underdogs and people would have been expecting hammerings against vastly more experienced teams with big name players playing for them. And then even moreso when we didn’t have our starting goalie."
"However as a team we stuck together and beared down. Played simple, worked hard and made sure we battled for each other."
"Both games were really competitive end to end for the most part of both of them. The Sunday game sticking out for us even more keeping the top of the league team to 1-1 with 10 mins left to only concede when we were pushing even more to get the go ahead goal."
"We created lots of offence in both games and really worked as a solid Unit in defence limiting chances as much as possible and keeping opposition to lower scoring areas. And Maudsley playing really well on Sunday too."
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| Paul Maudsley was Wild MVP against Billingham (Photo by David Tattum) |
The Wild have three away games now in a row – starting with a trip to face the Solihull Barons on Sunday 16th February, and back to back road games against Deeside Dragons and Nottingham Lions the week after. They are next at home on Sunday 2nd March when they take on Leeds Knights at Planet Ice Widnes, 5.30pm face off.
