Wings open home season Saturday against Boston Blazers

Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 1/15/10
From Press Releases

The Philadelphia Wings, fresh off an opening-game loss at Orlando, open their National Lacrosse League home season Saturday against the Boston Blazers at the Wachovia Center at 7 p.m.

The Blazers (0-1) have won all three previous meetings between the teams and are coaches by former Wings player Tom Ryan. Boston is led by 2009 league MVP Dan Dawson, who paced the league in assists last year with 74. Goalie Anthony Cosmo was second in the league with a goals against average of 10.14.

The Blazers will be playing the second half of a back-to-back slate. They play in Toronto tonight for the second time this season. Boston lost its first game of the season at home in the TD Garden Center, 17-7, to Toronto.

Ryan played 53 games for the Philadelphia Wings while compiling 39 goals and 143 assists in his 4 year stint with the team.

The Wings start their home portion of the schedule without Merrick Thomson, who is out with an injury for second straight game. Thomson finished fifth in the league with 39 goals last season. New offseason acquisition Dan Teat looks to build on a solid performance from the 13-8 loss to the Titans last Friday when he finished with two goals and two assists. Drew Westervelt led the team with three goals in a 13-8 loss to Orlando last week.

Wings coach David Huntley said the team must concentrate on stopping Dawson.

“The thing with Dawson is that he is a rare combination athletically in that he is big, athletic, can create his own shot, and has great stick skills while being one of three premier passers in NLL” said Huntley. “When he is on the floor you can’t ask just one person to defend him.”

Ryan said the Blazers will first focus on Friday’s game.

“We always take it one game at a time,” he said. “On Friday we will do our best to concentrate on doing the things to get the win in Toronto. We will do what is best with our goalie situation so we can do our best to win both games. We want to win both games this weekend, so we are going to do everything in our power to do that.”