Turkey entered this game as a high scoring, transition-heavy, never stop shooting style team. Switzerland had been emerging as a team that favored five on five, and a slightly slower pace of play.
The Swiss got the first marker of the game, to go up 1-0 about 1:30 into the contest, and then had two goals called back on crease violations. Turkey continued to push the pace, but early on it seemed as if the long week was taking its toll on the Turks.
At the 10:22 mark, the Swiss doubled their lead with a nice team marker from Jani Schruder, assisted by two teammates. The Swiss were generating good, long possessions, and looked to be controlling the run of play early on. After weathering a power play from Turkey, the Swiss got the ball out to a breaking transition player, and he put the ball past Scott Komer for a 3-0 lead. The 3 goal margin was short-lived as Turkey put one in on settled offense with about 5 minutes left in the first. Turkey got another marker to bring it ever close at 3-2, but the Swiss manufactured a nice open look and were able to sneak their fourth goal of the game through Komer’s legs.
The Swiss had two great chances at increasing their lead, but Turkey weathered the storm and got a goal late in the quarter from Dave DeRiso to cut the lead back to 1 at 4-3. The Swiss answered almost immediately though, and Philip Svonegal picked up his own rebound to put one over Komer’s shoulder, which was his second tally of the game to put the Swiss back up by 2 goals, 5-3.
Turkey’s DeRiso scored another goal for Turkey on a 10 yard rip, but the Swiss answered back quickly with a beautiful one-handed goal in tight to the cage from Patrick Brunner. Off the face, Turkey scored a transition goal, and in only 30 seconds we saw the game turn into a 6-5 contest with the Swiss still in the lead. 5 seconds later, off the next face off, Turkey tied it up at 6 goals apiece with a Joseph Rainoldi marker, his third of the game at the time. Turkey took the lead another 20 seconds later as DeRiso scored in transition. We had seen 5 goals in about a minute, and the Swiss called a timeout, realizing that they were quickly losing control of their game plan to slow things down a bit.
The Swiss were able to tie it back up at 7, but Rainoldi scored yet another goal with about 6 minutes left in the half, and Turkey was leading in the game, where they had been trailing for almost the entire way. The score was now 8-7, and the Turkish scoring machine was starting to come to life. The Swiss worked a really pretty pick and roll play to get the equalizer with 4:59 left in the half.
With two minutes left, and offsetting penalties called on both squads, the Turks got yet another marker from Rainoldi. Anthony Terranova dished out another assist on this goal to put Turkey up 9-8, and continued his transition from heavy scorer to assist provider and offensive initiator. The Swiss got a power play chance with 40 seconds left in the half and the Swiss manufactured two great last-minute chances, but Komer was more than equal to the test both times, and Turkey kept their 9-8 lead intact heading into the 3rd quarter.
The 3rd started out interestingly, as the scoring dropped off in a major way. Neither team was able to generate truly dangerous chances, and the score was stuck at 9-8 through the 4:32 mark when Patrick Dougherty was hit with a high sticking major penalty for a 5 minute Swiss powerplay. A great backside feed resulted in the tying goal for the Swiss, and with 3:52 left in the third period, we saw our first goal of the second half. The Turks went two men down when Rainoldi was hit with a needless cross check penalty on offense after the whistle blew. Terranova almost scored a two-man down goal, but the Swiss keeper made a big save to keep it tied at 9.
Still a man down, Turkey got another Dave DeRiso goal, to go back up 10-9. It was a great individual effort by DeRiso, and it marked his fourth goal of the game. Terranova picked up the assist on the play, and the WILC’s leading scorer continued to prove he can distribute as well as he shoots.
To start the 4th, both teams were a little frantic. The Swiss settled down first and tied it up at 10 goals apiece when Jani Schreiber got the ball to trickle past Komer, and over the goal line. The Swiss got the ball back with the score tied, but a huge hit from Caner created a turnover and killed the Swiss chance. With 10 minutes left in the game, Terranova turned on his scoring juices and put one over the shoulder of the Swiss goalie near side with a perfect overhand shot.
Turkey generated a good chance when they were man down, and Terranova put away his third goal of the game to push the Turkish lead to two goals, at 12-10. Scott Komer found Dave DeRiso on the break soon after, and DeRiso made a nice one hand catch before putting the ball away to put Turkey up 13-10 with 7:39 left in the game. That was DeRiso’s fifth goal of the game, and helped put him at over 50 points for the WILC. Terranova also eclipsed the 50-point mark for the tourney.
The Swiss pulled to within two goals at 13-11 and rang another off the pipe with 5:45 left in the game. Komer picked up another beautiful assist in this game when he found DeRiso cutting down the middle on the break. DeRiso dove and put one far side to give Turkey a 3 goal lead with just about 4 minutes left. The Swiss pulled right back 20 seconds later as Jani Schreiber got one through. The Swiss called a timeout with about 2:30 left in the game hoping to draw up a settled play to pull within one goal. Komer got his third assist of the period when he found Terranova on the break and Terranova put it away with ease.
The game finished with Turkey a 15-12 winner over Switzerland, and the Turkish transition scoring machine rolled on.
