DEEP COVER

Our local weather is FINALLY cooling, and Captain Jeremy Copp's Grey may well be the reason. No team in the league has been icier than Copp & Company, with just one point to show for their last four outings leaving them on the concerningly cozy with the cut line coming into their Week Eight match with Captain Wasif Hussain's Brown. By contrast, Brown was tied for the second 'warmest' team, coming in with a mark of 2-1-1 over their last four, tied with a resurgent White for second behind...yeah...you know. It is very safe to say (speaking from a profound personal knowledge) that frustration, desperation, and despair were setting in for Grey, and while it was not yet 'must win' time, it was about as close as it gets to 'the death' (fittingly enough...on DÍa De Los Muertos). A scoreless first saw Brown edge Grey in shots 10-8, and Captain Copp's Crew drew hope from something that most other teams take for granted...moving into the second period on equal (or better) footing. This hope did not last long, however, as Brennen Abel gave Brown the first lead of the game at 5:45 (Sadie Hellstrom & Payam Sazegar). Sazegar followed just fourteen seconds later with his first of the season (Eli Schonbrun & Shelby Shattuck)...then Vinnie Santora's first of the season at 3:09 (Hellstrom & Abel)...then Shattuck's first of the season at 0:27 (Schonbrun). What little hope and fight was left in Grey's ranks bubbled to the surface in an early third period push, as Chris Koziol finished a tic-tac-toe play from Jordan Pynn and Mark DeGraffenreid at 9:43, followed by Rob Gaudio's seventh of the season at 7:49 (Mark Daquipa). Brown would negate both of those strikes with two more of their own in quick succession, though...Hellstrom at 7:10 (Schonbrun & Captain Hussain), and Hellstrom again at 6:12 (Abel). Grey would fight back again, with Gaudio's second of the game coming at 5:04 (Hima Joshi & Daquipa) and his hat trick capper following at 4:23 (DeGraffenreid & Pat Gladstone). Copp's Crew would continue to push, but they were met with one last push back..Schonbrun's third of the season at 1:22 to put the game out of reach for good...7-4 Brown over Grey. The loss, combined with results later in the evening (spoiler alert), drops the already chilly corpse of Grey below the cut line for the first time all season. The good news for Grey...their final regular season opponent is Teal, the second coldest team in the league over the past five weeks of play at 1-3-1. The bad news...they will now officially need help from other teams...either a Blue loss or two Green losses this Sunday to leave their playoff escape hatch open.

The remaining recaps are coming soon...just need to shake the depression from typing the first one.