Bearing Fruit

Captain Rob Gaudio’s Black and Captain Steve Linke’s Red rolled into Week Five looking to strive and stay alive in the playoff drive, with both sides sitting on one win, coming in. With two of the…less decorated goalies serving as the last line of defense for their respective sides, Vegas had the O/U set at 7.5. The offense oozed slowly at first, with a pair of Josh Tran tallies in the first (both from Sadie Hellstrom) accounting for the only score sheet accounting through one period of play, but the flood was coming, and (spoiler alert)…I hope you had the over. John Boddy matched Tran’s pair with two of his own early in the second to put Red at a four goal advantage, and Tran had the primary assist on both, with a second assist on the second goal credited to Sadie Hellstrom (her third apple of the afternoon). Just when you thought this was going to be a boat race all up in Black’s face, Jim Lagrossa (from Wendy Enright and Will Heinl) and Captain Gaudio (from The LaGrossa Boys™) cut the lead to two, and pumped some air back into a deflated Black bench. Phil Nguyen settled Red back in with a late strike to move the lead back to 5-2 (from Boddy and Captain Linke), and that was just the start of the hand-cramp-inducing fun and games for the scorekeeper in this one. Will Heinl brought Black back to within two with his first of the season at 7:10 in the third (from Kyle Snyder and Captain Gaudio), Boddy completed his hatty and pumped the lead back to three less than two minutes later (from Captain Linke), Snyder cut it back to two less than a minute later (from Jim LaGrossa), and Scott Wieland responded again for Red at 3:39 (from Tran) to make it 7-4 Red going into the final minutes of play. Alas, Black had just one live bullet left in the chamber, as Captain Gaudio found powerplay pay dirt with 1:04 to play (from Snyder) to round out the scoring in a wild and loose 7-5 win for Red. This is definitely not a game that either Jon Cima (14/19) and super sub, Chuck Bender (18/25) will want to include on their resume, but Cima & Company will certainly take the wins where they can get them. Red’s 2-2-1 first half is good enough for fourth place at the midway point. They will look to continue their high scoring swagger against a 1-1-2 Neon this Sunday, while Black will need to begin to dig their way out from below the cut line in their Week Six matchup with a 3-2-0 Brown brigade.

Another pair of teams struggling to find the start button on their season squared off in the second game on the Week Five slate. For Captain Mark Nagy’s Purple, the (sad) story coming in was a near complete lack of scoring (just ONE goal in three previous games), which (not surprisingly) meant just one point to show in the standings. Captain Sean Bathgate’s Neon had fared fairly well in the goals-for column coming in with six in three games and, unlike Purple, had actually managed a win in their first three tries, leaving them with the proverbial ‘sample platter’ start of 1-1-1. So…destined to be a close, low-scoring affair by all logic, and…at least one of those predictions came true. Jeff Henderson got the ball rolling in Purple’s favor with a powerplay strike from distance at 7:10 in the first (from Craig Russell), but David Schlatter would equalize at 1:10 (from Carl Vankoughnett and Kaity Gottfried), and twist home a 0:04 solo dagger to leave Neon on the high ground through one. The second period belonged to Purple, with Captain Nagy (from Josh Wirt) and Mark DeGraffenreid (on a sweet outlet pass from special guest sub, Kyra Forsyth) turning the tables in their team’s favor going into the final frame. The lead flipped back the other way one more time, courtesy of a 5:30 Chris Fiore strike, and an unassisted Vankoughnett goal to make it 4-3 Neon with time running low. Josh Wirt saved the day, and saved a big point in the standings for Purple with the knot-maker at 2:11 (from Ian Crooks), and that is how this one would end…in a 4-4 tie. Both Chuck Bender (15/19) and Chris Tran (14/18) split the spoils with solid efforts, and ‘a point is a point’, but Purple remain the only team without a win to this point in the season. They will need to find a way to punch their way to multiple wins if they want to remain in the playoff fight, but they face the toughest of challenges this Sunday in Orange (4-1-0). Neon have done enough to stay above the cut line in their first four games, and will look to keep it that way when they take on Red (2-2-1) in an intriguing middle ground melee.

The middle game finally provided some relief for the poor scorekeeping crew, as two of the stingiest teams in the league scrapped and scraped to find red light redemption over three tight periods of play. Captain Geoff Downes’ Orange rode in on a 4-0-0 high horse named ‘Hendo’…an homage to their out-of-his-fucking-mind-crushing-it-this-season goalie, Matt Henderson. The legend that is Sean Kelly was out of action for Captain Luke Wolmer’s Green, but with legend-to-be Silas ‘The Silencer’ Perks in nets in his stead, this one was definitely billed as a ‘whoever manages to score a single goal may win’ affair. Newcomer* Erick Zawislack managed just that, pushing his second of the season past Henderson to give Green a 1-0 lead at 5:10 in the first. Actual newcomer, Jason Lee, recorded his first SDFHL point on the play with the primary assist (CONGRATULATIONS!), and Shelby Shattuck collected the second. One goal…do I hear two? Anyone else? Just the one goal, then? Going once…going twice…sold to Captain Wolmer’s Green, 1-0. Yes, after TWENTY goals poured past pipe-minders in the first two games, this one was settled with one, and only one. Henderson (24/25) was the story again, although this time the story had a twist…the first loss for Orange on the season, leaving just Blue unblemished in that column. Perks would face less than a quarter of that total at the other end, stopping the whopping half dozen efforts he faced to earn a big W for his surrogate side. It’s worth mentioning that Orange was without Zach Salt for the second straight game, and were also missing second fiddle sniper, Justin Ker (who…let’s be honest…is rarely there), and defensive stalwart, Mostafa Azab. Green were without their captain, but you can be sure Luke’s eyes lit up upon seeing the group text after this one. Orange will look to bounce back from this new feeling (loss) against a desperate and determined Purple, while Green look to undue another undefeated season in a Week Six brush with Blue.

With Orange finally suffering a loss, Captain Jon Salt’s Blue was licking their chops at the chance to slip into the top spot in the standings. A win over a so-far-so-so White was all it would take, but Orange were not the only ones with a sodium shortage, and Blue would have to make do with Captain Jon off sailing the seven seas. A scoreless first bled into a scoreless second, as the goalies continued to dominate in the third and fourth games of the night. From twenty goals in six periods to just one in the ensuing five, this contest certainly had the ‘one goal could do the trick’ vibe all over again. With Captain Jon gone, it was ‘the other John’ who finally broke through for Blue, as Mr. Gamm cashed in at 5:35 (from Mark Ennsmann and Kalen Hunter) to put the undefeated favorites in a familiar position…on top (TWSS). Gary Peters would save the day and preserve an important point for White with his second of the season at 1:51 (from Jon Zygelman and Ryan Loughran), tying the tense tilt for good at one apiece. Both goalies were superb, with Silas Perks and Nick Vacchio each allowing just the one goal, and each making twenty-five saves. We have definitely come to expect this level of play from Perks, who is a perennial MVP on Cup contender after Cup contender, but Vacchio’s play has been eye-opening thus far, to say the least. His .933 is just a hair behind Perks for second overall in that category, and his 1.40 GAA is actually a touch better than that of ‘The Silencer’ (1.50)! It’s no wonder Blue is the only remaining team without a loss, when their goalie is going toe to toe with the best in the business, and the team is able to accrue three out of four points in the absence of their super star captain. It will be another juicy duel for Vacchio this week, as Captain Salt returns to lead his team against Sean Kelly and Green, while White will look to turn around their league-worst offensive numbers (four goals in four games) and climb above the cut line in a Week Six showdown with 2-2-0 Gold.

Team color combinations can (for me, anyway) often call to mind a season, or a holiday, or some pop culture this or that. When I think brown and grey (or brown and silver, or brown and black), a very on-theme vision comes to mind. Some of the sad, drab balloons for Kelly’s ‘It Is Your Birthday’ party were more inflated (or, less deflated) than others, and so was the case in what I am dubbing ‘The Birthday Balloon Battle™’ that served as the Week Five finale. Grey puffed up first, with Marc Lapointe’s first of the season coming courtesy of an Andy Strathman helper. It was all Brown in the second, though, with Brennen Abel leading a four goal charge that would suck the air out of the Grey ranks. Abel tied the game at 7:14 (from Janice Darlington and Dan Soar), then gave Brown the lead less than a minute later (from Soar and Hima Joshi). Vance ‘Refrigeration’ Morra was next to strike (from Jeremy Copp and…Nick Meglich!), and Harsh Wanigaratne made it 4-1 with just 0:12 to play in the middle stanza (from Janice Darlington and Soar). Jordan Pynn kept the Grey hope balloon aloft with his third of the season midway through the third, but Abel popped one more to complete the hat trick and wrap the scoring in a 5-2 Brown win. Janice ‘Clearly The Superior’ Darlington collected her third assist of the game on Abel’s third goal…good enough for second star of the game (and Darlington Manor bragging rights). Cory Brin (22/27) came back to earth after an other-worldly first game back from injury and absence in Week Four, while Nick Meglich (7/9) was (apparently) bored enough at his end that he decided to contribute to the offense! At 3-2-0, Brown sit just below the top two teams in the league, very much in the hunt for the catbird seat as we make the turn. They will look to build their win streak to three in ‘The Birthday Balloon Battle, Part Deux™’ this Sunday against Captain Gaudio’s Black, while Grey will make the tough choice of savoring their bye week by taking an hour nap, or watching an hour of TV.