Last weekend was a successful one for The Bespoke Guardians Swindon Wildcats ensuring their only game of the weekend finished in a 4-3 victory on home ice against the Raiders IHC.
Going into the game missing four crucial players in Balint Pakozdi, Sam Bullas, Tomasz Malasinski & Declan Balmer the Wildcats started the game brightly, but soon found themselves a goal down when Jake Sylvester found room to fire past Dean Skinns in the Cats net at 07:10.
Neither side were able to generate to much offense with the shots being tied at 5-5 for the opening period, but at 19:08 the Wildcats did manage to tie the game up through Chris Jones who found room in front of the goal to bring the game level going into the second.
In the middle stanza the Wildcats found themselves a goal down again when Aaron Connolly managed to pounce on a loose puck after a couple of attempts at clearing the puck were unsuccessful from the Swindon defence.
However, at 26:40 the game was tied again, this time Emil Svec adding to his impressive scoring tally for the season with a hard slapshot past Ethan James who had no chance of stopping the puck. As the period was ending, this time it would be the home side who went a goal ahead through the in-form stick of Aaron Nell.
The Wildcats coach was the first to react when James dropped a rebound into the slot after an initial save from a long-range Stevie Whitfield effort. In the third period, another instinctive goal from Nell extended the Wildcats lead to 4-2, when another initial save from Neil Liddiard was deflected to an unmarked Nell at the back door.
With the game dying out, the Wildcats looked to stay solid and ensure the points would remain in Swindon but the Raiders did reduce the deficit when Lukas Sladkovsky added a third goal for the visitors at 51:23.
The Wildcats would hold on and ensure they kept 2 points in their only fixture of the weekend. This coming week the team are back on home ice on Friday night against the Basingstoke Bison before travelling to Milton Keynes on Saturday to face-off with the Lightning.
