King Wild ride big second period to beat depleted Storm squad, 4-3
By Jon Yaneff

Deseronto's Kole Abbott was trying to chase down Wild forward Steve Wicklum late in Saturday's match.

The Storm wasn't strong Saturday night, so the Wild were able to clear a path to victory.

That is, the Deseronto Storm weren't strong. They only had 12 players dressed, as opposed to 19 suiting up for the King Wild.

As a result, the Wild, with the combination of stellar goaltending and the strength of a four-goal second period (on only 10 shots), escaped their home arena on the winning-end of a 4-3 nail-bitter.

The Wild exploded for four goals in the second period, after trailing 1-0, on a goal from Storm captain Brad Clark (assisted by Andrew Bobas and Tommy Salt) in the first.

"We weren't doing the little things in the first," said Wild Coach Sheldon Friske. "But I talked to them (the players) in between periods and we came into the second period playing our game."

King's massive goal outburst in the second was mostly produced from the Matt Marchese, Anthony Simone, Jon Adams line, in which the trio combined for nine points. This performance resulted in Marchese (first) and Simone (third) being named stars of the game.

Marchese began the goal-scoring frenzy by notching the Wild's first marker, tying the game on the powerplay at the nineminute mark of the second period (assisted by Brandon Beadow and Keylan Marchant). Simone tallied the next two Wild goals, the first (from Marchese and Beadow) to take the lead and the second (from Marchese and Adams) after the crafty Wild forward was left wide open in front of the net. He easily slapped the puck past Storm netminder Brandon Blaskie into the empty cage.

Marchese then finished what he started in the second, by potting his second goal of the game with about one-minute left in the period (assisted by Simone and Adams) to give the Wild a 4-1 advantage heading into the third.

"You never know whose line is going to come to play," said Friske, of his team. "Next week it could be (Marc) Fortin's line or (Chris) Martella's line, so it's nice and if one player picks up the score then I'm happy. We don't just have one guy like Deseronto's Clark and you know they're going to him, where with us they can't watch just one player."

Clark leads the Greater Metro Junior A League in scoring with 83 points (43 goals and 40 assists) in 35 games this season.

Cody Roy (assisted by Todd Munden and Clark) and Bobas (assisted by Clark and Munden) helped Deseronto get the game close in the third after a chewing out of the team could be heard from the Storm dressing room between periods. Clark's three-point effort (one goal, two assists) earned him the second star of the game.

King goalie Craig Byford set aside 39 of 42 Deseronto shots to record the victory, while Blaskie stopped 19 of 23 pucks he faced in the game.

The Wild win catapults them ahead of the South Muskoka Shield, with 39 points, into seventh place with 40. The Richmond Hill Rams are in sixth with 44. . This puts the Wild at the elusive .500 mark with a 19- 19-2 record.

King has played four more games than the Rams and two more than Muskoka, and the Wild will have to fare well in their last two regular season games to remain close in the final standings going into the playoffs.

The Wild close their regular season with a home game Feb. 16 at 8:30 p.m. against the 10th place Espanola Kings and Feb. 17 at 7:30 p.m. against the Bradford Rattlers, who are in first place with 65 points.