Under 16s close with five-star win

THE Wild Academy Under 16 team finished off their regular league season with an impressive 1-5 victory away over Manchester Storm on Saturday.

Widnes took the lead after nine minutes with a goal from Jared Knowles and a strike from Cody Ogden two minutes later saw them leading 0-2 at the first break.

Jaxon Kirk Jones edged the Wild youngsters further ahead early in the second period but it took until the 34th minute for the hosts to find the back of the net themselves.

The Wild scored again just 30 seconds later with another from Cody Ogden and he completed his hat-trick with another strike in the 42nd minute.

The resulting 1-5 win means that

Widnes finish the league campaign in 3rd place in the Under 16 table, behind unbeaten leaders Leeds and second place Sheffield. ● The Wild Academy Under 12 team lost 8-0 away to league leaders Bradford Under 12s on Saturday.

The Widnes youngsters are currently 5th in the league table with 2 games left to play.

They are at home to Billingham this Saturday, 3.20pm face off.

The Wild Academy Under 14 team will take on Solihull U14s straight after – 4.50pm face off

● The Wild Academy Under 16 team picked up a creditable draw with league leaders Leeds Knights Under 16s in a challenge match at Planet Ice Widnes on Sunday.

The Knights have won all of their league games this season – including home and away victories over Widnes - so this was a superb achievement, especially with the Wild youngsters having already played a tough game away in Manchester the day before.

This game was closely fought throughout, very entertaining to watch and the end result remained until the very last second.

Widnes took the lead on three minutes through Aidan Lamb but Leeds equalised 30 seconds later and then went ahead themselves on 7 minutes.

A ninth minute equaliser from Luke Alston – short handed – put the teams back on level terms and the score remained 2-2 at the first break.

The Wild retook the lead briefly in the second period with a goal from Liam Yarwood but that was cancelled out by a Leeds counter and the match remained on a knife edge at 3-3 heading into the final period.

Leeds sneaked back into the lead just 76 seconds from the restart but Widnes equalised again with a second goal from Yarwood just 80 seconds later.

A powerplay goal from Yarwood – to complete his hat-trick – on 34 minutes put the Wild back in front but another strike from Leeds tied the game up at 5-5.

The two teams will meet again in the return match away in Yorkshire on Saturday 7th May

● The Wild Academy Under 10 team took part in a 4-team “cross ice” tournament including teams from Telford, Bradford and Manchester Storm at Planet Ice Widnes on Sunday.

The Under 10s play short format games across the width of the ice, instead of using the full length of it.

This enables the young players to concentrate more on developing important playing skills like passing and positioning, rather than spending most of their time and energy chasing up and down the ice.

Games are played for fun and no scores are recorded or player statistics officially collected.