CHESTER, Pa. — The Week 12 opener presented a natural passing of the guard in the Eastern Conference as the Philadelphia Waterdogs clinched their spot in the semifinals with a 18-10 win against defending champion New York Atlas on Saturday inside Subaru Park.
The biggest headline of the day came early when CJ Kirst set the single-season goals record with his first goal, sweeping across the middle and finishing top shelf stickside for his 31st this summer. Kirst scored 3 goals on 7 shots.
“Honestly it really hit me once everyone came on the field and was able to celebrate with every guy,” Kirst said. “That was pretty special, definitely something that I’m going to carry with me — not really putting the ball in the back of the net, but being able to celebrate with every guy on the field.”
Michael Sowers led the scoring charge with 4G, 1A, Josh Yago notched his first hat trick with 3G, 1A, Kieran McArdle and Jake Taylor both had 1G, 2A and goalie Sean Byrne saved 19 shots (68%) in a complete showing in the first leg of their Philly doubleheader.
It started with a power play goal from New York as Traynor struck 61 seconds in, lefty Cole Williams made it 2-0 and after two-straight Sowers goals, Brett Makar took back New York’s lead with a 2-pointer in transition to make it 4-3.
From there on, Philadelphia played with the purpose, urgency and skill that showed their intent is clear to take the mantle from New York and come out of the East in this year’s postseason.
“Hopefully we can replicate what they did,” McArdle said postgame. “Two different teams, two different styles, but if we can come out of here with a championship, that’s great news.”
“They got good players. They got two players playing really, really high-level ball with Kirst and Sowers, obviously,” said Xander Dickson when asked about the changing of the guard. “Guys have stepped up the past few games and played really well. I mean, yeah, Kirst and Sowers are hard to stop sometimes and on defense, they got good players everywhere. They’re a good team. We lost a couple guys this year, and next year we’ll have guys back from injuries and we’ll have a good team, too. So it’s not like they’re doing anything that’s uncatchable by any means. Next year we’ll be right back on them.”
Bryan Costabile set Dickson up for a goal with a minute left in the first quarter, but again Philadelphia had an answer. This time it was their fresh new Canadian SSDM pairing as Zach Currier carried upfield and Casey Wilson crashed the crease, received the leading Currier pass and made it 5-4.
Philly controlled the second frame. Silas Richmond went bottom right off a Kieran McArdle touch pass on the power play, Kirst backed his way in for his second goal and rookie Josh Yago skipped it to McArdle on another power play to make it 7-5. A Jimmy Freehill trailer 2-bomb jeopardized the game from getting out of hand in a hurry.
But Hugh Kelleher’s underneath dart and dive before Matt Traynor’s kept New York respectable in the first half. Sowers nailed his second lefty goal to finalize the first-half scoring at 10-7, upping his “off” hand goals to an even dozen (the lone player to have double-digit goals with both hands), so far.
Kirst put perennial short-stick defensive middie of the year Danny Logan in a blender with a wing spin and score to open up the second half with a sign of intent to show that Philly is and has been a class above this summer.
The next goal put an exclamation mark on the 4-0 Philly run, with Sowers getting the rock with New York’s defense hung up, linking up with McArdle who kindly returned the favor with some finesse on the cross-crease set up to Sowers for the open netter.
Reid Bowering showed the Bulls weren’t going down without a fight. His rebound goal off a Costabile lefty take put a brief halt to the bleeding, then Bowering got into it with Freehill in the sub box on the next dead ball.
The resulting scuffle, penalties and 5-on-5 scenario led to plenty of open space for Yago to split left and score low. His righty rollback showed fortune was in Philly’s favor as it got heavily deflected off Alex Ross’ stick and redirected past Liam Entenmann to make it 14-8.
Yago continued to fill the net and Silas Richmond converted a 2-pointer later as the Waterdogs raced away to the 18-10 result.
Philadelphia will take on the winner of the East semifinal between Boston and Maryland, now just a game away from their third PLL title game appearance. New York is on the clock to pick first in what could be a star depleted 2027 College Draft.