Guildford Lightning are a women’s ice hockey team that play in the British Women’s League Premier Division and we are very lucky to have Daniella West (a longstanding Flames and Lightning fan) giving us updates and match reports on how the Guildford Lightning progress this season. Daniella writes a blog called ‘Strike the Puck’ where you can find even more info on how the Lightning has done over the past few years. Like the Guildford Flames, Lightning play their home games at Guildford Spectrum, but admission is free so no excuse not to go and support our local women’s team!
Sunday 13 October saw the Guildford Lightning take to the ice for the first time in the 2013/14 season against old adversaries Slough Phantoms. The travellers made the visit to the Spectrum Leisure Centre in Guildford for the first time since the end of last season in May when Lightning were 5-2 winners on the night and thus advanced to the Playoffs after reaching third in the league. Unfortunately this time the visitors handed out the home team a 3-4 loss, despite Jordan Wilshire scoring a marvellous hat-trick.
On the night, Abby Hartley and Paige Parker were handed their debuts but the game wasn’t even 5 minutes old before Louise Wheeler put the visitors 1-0 up with 4:43 on the clock. Exactly 3 minutes later, Wheeler scored her second of the night at 7:43 and Slough took a 2-0 lead despite both teams having chances.
The second period saw Sarah Jane Nicholls poke the puck home for Slough’s third at 25:48 before Guildford began to get back into the game more. The shutout for Slough only lasted until 35:18 when Jordan Wilshire scored her first goal of the game after she was fed from Laura Price. The period ended 3-1 despite Wilshire coming very close to making it 3-2 a minute after her first score.
Wilshire was in the thick of it again scoring on 49:30 to put Guildford back within one and now only trailing 2-3 to the visitors. However, it was Slough who made the decisive blow next when their Number 9 scored their fourth of the night at 57:05.
Jordan Wilshire valiantly got her hat trick goal with the clock stating 58:37 after Lightning coach Jon Leslie took a gamble by pulling the goalie at a Slough penalty to get a 6 on 4 advantage on the ice. Unfortunately, the scoring finished there and Slough came away 3-4 winners, despite a good Guildford comeback.
My thoughts on the game
Well done to Jordan Wilshire for her hat trick, it was a great effort in a losing cause. Unfortunately there were some disputable refereeing decisions from Dan Aronov which went in Slough’s favour and thus affected the final result.
Daniella West
Daniella’s blog can be found at http://strikethepuck.wordpress.com/