Thursday, October 1, 2026
Zach Higgins and the Philadelphia Wings proved to be too much for the surging Riptide to handle.
Higgins had 43 saves and Kevin Crowley had three goals and four assists as the Wings took the season series from New York with an 11-5 victory at Nassau Coliseum last Saturday night.
Kiel Matisz scored twice and finished with six points and Blaze Riorden and Kyle Jackson had two goals apiece for Philadelphia (7-8), which took two of three games from New York (4-9) this season. The Wings avenged a 13-12 loss the Riptide in their last meeting on Jan. 23 after beating them 14-12 on Dec. 10.
Jeff Teat had three assists, Tyler Digby scored his first goal since being re-acquired from Colorado and defenseman Andrew Borgatti recorded his first NLL tally for the Riptide, who came into the game winners of two straight and three of four. Larson Sundown, Callum Crawford and Connor Kearnan also scored for New York.
“Frustrating is a great way to put it,” coach Dan Ladouceur said. “Higgins played great, he didn’t play five goals great. We had great opportunities, hit some posts, we had a lot of blocks, passes knocked down. So, I think as much as the offense created opportunities, we left a lot on the floor too.”
The Riptide offense looked strong in the opening minutes of the first quarter and had several opportunities to get the first goal, but Philadelphia, which had lost five of six entering the contest, got goals from Jackson, Crowley and Matisz in a 58-second span to jump out to a 3-0 lead with 8:08 left.
“It was massive,” Ladouceur said of the Wings’ surge. “We know this team likes to go top side and shoot and we gave them too much space, which was not part of the game plan.”
Digby put New York on the board just under a minute later with a power-play goal, but Cory Vitarelli responded with his own man-advantage marker and Crowley added his second goal to help the Wings push their lead to 5-1. Sundown one-timed Dan Lomas’ feed just before the first quarter buzzer and Crawford scored his team-leading 33rd goal 2:35 into the second to make it 5-3, but that was as close as the Riptide got.
New York trailed 7-4 at halftime and didn’t score in the third quarter while Riorden got the Wings’ only tally. Riptide netminder Steve Orleman recorded seven of his 34 saves during the session while Higgins stopped all 13 Riptide attempts.
“We felt we were moving the ball around well, playing well, but the finishing wasn’t quite there,” Teat said.
Matisz notched his second goal 1:16 into the fourth quarter and Riorden and Jackson scored 91 seconds apart in the waning minutes to ice the game.
The Riptide will have little time to dwell on the loss with a visit to Colorado on Monday before traveling to league-leading Buffalo on Saturday. New York returns to the Coliseum on April 16 when it hosts Health & Wellness night against Rochester at 7:30 p.m.
