Wild Loses At Trail

Trail, BC. – The Wenatchee Wild hit the road Saturday night and dropped a 4-2 decision to the Trail Smoke Eaters at Cominco Arena in Trail.

Wenatchee would take the lead on a Blake Christensen (Lauderhill, FL) power play goal, assisted by Brendan Harris (Las Vegas, NV) and August Von Ungern (Boise, ID) at 16:06, giving the Wild a 1-0 lead after one.

Trail would take the lead with a pair of second period goals. The first came off the stick of Ross Armour. Nii Noh Tetteh and Cooper Sande assisted at 2:30, tying the game 1-1. The Smoke Eaters would then jump on top thanks to a Kyle Star marker. The assists went to Harlan Orr and Spencer McLean at 11:56, putting Trail up 2-1 after two.

In the third, Christensen scored again, assisted by Harris and Aaron Murray (Chino, CA), tying the game for Wenatchee at 2-2. However, the Smokies would score twice to take the game. The first was scored by Cooper Leitch from Ryan Swanson at 17:00, then Kale Howarth scored into an empty net from Jake Kauppila at 19:44, allowing Trail to skate away with the 4-2 win.

The Wild outshot the Smoke Eaters 31-24 on the night. Chase Perry (Andover, MN) made 20 stops for Wenatchee, while Bailey Mac Burnie had 29 saves for Trail. The Wild went 1-for-6 on the power play and 2-of-2 on the penalty kill. “For the most part, we thought we played very well.” said Wenatchee Wild Head Coach/General Manager Bliss Littler. “We gave ourselves a chance, disappointing after getting to 2-2 that we didn’t make them work overly hard for their third goal. That was a bit frustrating, but overall I thought we had a pretty good effort.”

With the win, the Smoke Eaters improve to 13-17-0-0 on the season, Wenatchee falls to 18-9-2-2. The Wild continues their road swing this coming Wednesday night, December 9th at Coquitlam against the Express at 7:00pm PST. Wenatchee will then play at Cowichan Valley on Friday, December 11^th and at Victoria on Saturday, December 12^th. The Wild will then close out their pre-Christmas schedule with a pair of home games against the Chilliwack Chiefs on Friday and Saturday, December 18^th and 19^th.

Battle For The Border