Swindon Wildcats bounced back from a tough loss at home to Streatham on Saturday with a comprehensive 7-4 victory in South London on Sunday evening. A hat-trick from Adam Harding inspired the team to hold on and bring the points back to Wiltshire.
The game started with Streatham creating a couple of chances early on when Renny Marr turned shots from Andreas Siagris and Ryan Webb at bay. However, the Wildcats put the pressure on as we got closer to the half-way mark when Aaron Nell scored 2 goals in 35 seconds. Firstly, he found room in close to slide the puck under Damien King, with the assists going to Max Birbraer. Moments later Max again teed up his coach who was able to fire past King and cause Streatham to take their time-out.
The regroup worked for them, with Chris Jones sitting in the penalty box, Streatham were able to halve the deficit when Ryan Webb converted an effort after Leigh Jamieson had set him up.
Into the middle period, and the Wildcats extended their lead quickly when Adam Harding scored his first of the night, creatively batting the puck out of mid-air, thanks to assists from Edgars Bebris and Sam Jones. At 24:42, he scored his second goal of the game. Again, crashing the net looking for the rebound he was the first to react to loose puck and make it 1-4 in favour of the visitors.
After a scuffle at centre ice between Sam Jones and Adam Wood, Streatham were able to begin to claw the game back when Ryan Webb scored his second of the night finding room through Renny Marr. At 33:18 the Wildcats scored what would be the decisive goal. The puck was turned over to Aaron Nell on the blue-line who fed it back to Sam Bullas. Bully slid the puck out to the right wing where an on-rushing Jan Kostal powered home to make it 2-5, and that’s how it remained for the remainder of the period.
The third period Streatham began to create a few more opportunities through the likes of Michael Farn and Alex Roberts who were both really testing Marr in the Swindon pipes. However, a bit of power play fortune saw Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Bebris throw a puck on net, only for it to hit a Streatham skate and go into the back of the net to make it 2-6 with fifteen minutes to play.
Streatham then began a mini comeback when Scott Bailey was able to score their third goal of the game at 47:22. On the power play again, they were able to make it 4 when Adam Carr pounced on a rebound from Marr after some Streatham pressure that tested the Wildcats.
However, with less than two minutes to play in the game, Adam Harding picked the puck up in the neutral zone and skated towards goal and put the puck in the empty net to seal his hat-trick and a 7-4 win.
MOM: #4 Adam Harding
