Mohegan - New England, in its first National Lacrosse League game in franchise history, was up a goal in the third quarter, having just allowed Buffalo to narrow the margin.

A constant drumbeat of music over the public address system forming the backdrop for 5,768 fans at Mohegan Sun Arena, morphing from "Turn Down for What" to "Hungry Like a Wolf," rookie forward Quinn Powless picked up the ball on an acrobatic rebound right in front of the Buffalo goal.

Powless gathered it, fell backward and shot simultaneously.

Suddenly, the New England Black Wolves led by two again Friday night on the way to a 12-8 opening-day victory over Buffalo. Buffalo defeated New England twice during a preseason in which the Black Wolves, formerly the Philadelphia Wings, went 0-3.

"The way Quinn scored that goal was obviously great passion," said Black Wolves forward Kevin Crowley, who led the scoring with two goals and three assists for five points. "He's got the skills. He's a student of the game."

"They're all good players," Black Wolves coach Blane Harrison said. "They just have to have the confidence."

Despite trailing 3-1 early, New England drew excitement from a fistfight early on between Kevin Buchanan of the Black Wolves and Steve Priolo of the Bandits.

"For Kevvy, that was a huge move. We weren't going to take any crap from them," Crowley said.

The Black Wolves led 6-5 at halftime on a goal by Crowley assisted by Powless that snuck through the legs of Buffalo goalie Anthony Cosmo.

The second half then featured the fireworks from Powless to give the Black Wolves an 8-6 lead, followed closely by a goal from Kyle Buchanan on which he slung the ball behind his back past Cosmo once again for a 9-7 lead.

In the fourth quarter, New England fought through a five-minute major penalty to Michael McNamara for an illegal crosscheck and the ensuing two-minute penalty on Sheldon Burns for an illegal substitution, which gave Buffalo a temporary 5-on-3 power play advantage.

That's when Black Wolves goalie Evan Kirk got stingy. Transition man Joel White engineered a steal which killed the last 11 seconds of the major penalty, putting the teams back even with New England clinging to a 9-8 lead and the Black Wolves poured it on in the final moments, getting a goal by Jamie Lincoln with 6:57 to go to push the lead back to two.

Craig England picked up a loose ball and got it to Pat Saunders for a goal to make it 11-8 and Kyle Buchanan scored the final goal, getting behind the Buffalo goalie.

Harrison said the Black Wolves were able to stretch the floor more than they had against Buffalo in the preseason - with some hesitancy previously on behalf of players waiting to sub in on offense - resulting in a few transition goals.

"We felt we needed to do something different," Harrison said. "We realized we weren't stretching the floor."

He also believes that Buffalo, a playoff team a year ago which has another game today at home against Edmonton, was trying to save some energy in reserve.

"They were maybe looking a little bit forward," Harrison said. "We kept the throttle down."

Kyle Buchanan had four goals for the Black Wolves, who play their next game Jan. 10 at home against defending league champion Rochester. Saunders had three goals and Kevin Buchanan and Powless each had a goal and two assists.

Kirk made 50 saves to earn the victory.

"In this league a win is a good thing to get," said Harrison, whose team missed the playoffs last year in Philadelphia by losing five one-goal games and who has only nine returning players from last season's team, trying to get a relatively young team to jell. "We'll take it.

"If we had gone down 4-1 and nothing was happening I would have worried, but we were down 3-1 and had our chances. I thought with the ebb and flow, we'll get it back."

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday