Athan Iannucci breaks NLL season scoring record

[Viper]

The teams with the two best records in the NLL, the Philadelphia Wings and the Minnesota Swarm met last night at Xcel Energy Center in a clash for first place in the East. Also, Wings forward Athan Iannucci entered the game with 60 goals, one behind Gary Gait's single-season record.

He was held goalless through the first half, which ended with the Swarm up 10-3. In fact he spent most of the half hanging back along the perimeter away from prime scoring position; I presume this was meant to keep the Swarm defense from keying on him. The ploy worked, and the Wings staged a furious rally in the third quarter. Iannucci tied the record with a shot from just inside the left faceoff spot for Philly's 7th goal. A few minutes later Kyle Sweeney fed Iannucci as he came swooping in from the perimeter. Iannucci promptly buried the ball behind Nick Patterson, and the record became his. I was even able to capture the goal on camera! Unfortunately, Iannucci himself was out of the frame at the moment (Sweeney is pointing toward him), so you'll just have to trust me with this one:

Here are two more pictures I took in the moments following the historic goal. The first is Iannucci being mobbed by his teammates. The second is him being interviewed by "The Professor", an assistant PA announcer at Swarm home games whose normal role is to explain the game to the NLL newbies in attendance.

The video of both goals is up at NLL.com, but a much larger version is on the Swarm web site (look for the link "04/12/2008 - Iannucci Breaks Scoring Record"). By the end of the quarter the Wings cut the Swarm lead to a single goal, then erased that in the fourth. They even took the lead late, and it looked like my Swarm were doomed to their first home defeat of the season. But then Dan Marohl, ironically a former Wing, got the equalizer with 1.5 seconds left! Then in OT, Sean Pollock blasted home the game-winner from the perimeter. Unfortunately I could not get usable shots of those goals because of everyone standing in front of me, and other than the Iannucci goals, neither the Swarm nor Wings Web sites, or even the NLL league site, seem to have 2nd-half footage up yet as of the time I posted this. (The Swarm page I linked to does have 1st-half highlights up.)

What a night. What a player. What a game. And what a win for the Swarm, who are now closing in on home-turf advantage through the entire NLL playoffs.

NLL.com article on the record

NLL.com article on the game