Boot & Rally

While the ‘winless’ label completely loses any impact after just one week of play, teams still hope to find a way to win early in a new season, and two ‘winless’ teams kicked off the Week Two slate with that goal in mind. Captain Mark Nagy’s Red suffered greatly from the near complete absence of their defensive core in a lopsided loss to Brown in their debut (5-0). Captain Janet Goins’ Orange was also missing key players in their first game, including their brightest star (and one of the brightest in the league), Brennen Abel, but still nearly managed to survive a tangle with Green, falling just short of securing a point in the standings in a tight 1-0 tussle. It was clear from the outset in this one that Captain Nagy was NOT OK with his team’s offensive anemia in Week One. The veteran leader posted a solo strike at 8:25, Red’s first of the season, giving his team (of course) their first lead of the season. Newcomer, Eli Schonbrun, doubled that lead with another lone wolf effort at 4:44 in the second…his first career SDFHL goal! CONGRATULATIONS, ELI! It was more Nagy in the third, with ANOTHER unassisted, early-period goal giving Red a 3-0 cushion…which another newcomer, Orange’s Eric Enciso, eroded to 3-1 with HIS first career SDFHL goal (from Alan Razoky). CONGRATULATIONS, ERIC! Alas for Orange, the milestone goal would stand alone (as their only goal in this game…and only goal so far this season), and Nagy would restore the three goal edge, complete his hat trick, and ice a 4-1 win for Red with an empty netter in the final minute of play (Jordan Pynn). Don Tran (16/17) collected his first win of the new campaign, while Chuck Bender (18/21) followed a stellar Week One outing with a solid second effort…albeit, another losing one. It is perhaps the biggest understatement of all time to suggest that Orange will be VERY happy to be Abel-bodied again in Week Three. A half-goal-a-game pace is enough to keep any team ‘winless’ for a long time…

Captain Nick Meglich’s ‘Tanqueray & TwoNicks’ looked to repeat their Week One winning feat and remain ‘undefeated’ (another flimsy early season term) in their second foray of the fall against Captain Geoff Downes’ White. As noted in the previous recap, Green didn’t exactly dominate a downgraded Orange side in their opening week win, and were it not for their captain’s spotless sheet, would have found themselves in the same ‘winless’ world as White, coming in. A scoreless first saw Green holding a 7-4 edge in shots, but White shifted that edge in their favor in the second, holding Green to just one, while Carl Vankoughnett’s late period tally (Mark Scelfo & Wendy Enright) accounted for one of seven shots the other way. Jeannine Stuzka converted on a power play (Captain Downes & Vankoughnett) to double White’s lead at 3:58 in the third, and a Tony Thinh empty netter with 0:16 to play made sure there would be no late game comeback heroics in this one. Don Tran (12/12) continued his great night, picking up the 3-0 shutout win for White in Sean ‘Da Kid’ Kelly’s stead, while Captain Meglich (15/17) absorbed a tough loss to even his (and his team’s) season record at 1-1-0. Wins and losses aren’t always down to a formula of goal scoring and goal tending stats and trends, and it is very early in the season, but where Orange has the excuse of missing the likes of Enciso (for one game) and Abel (for two), Green has had their full complement of top tier players out there thus far…and they have ONE goal to show for sixty minutes of play. Meglich is certainly ‘Megical’™, but he cannot score goals himself, and he will really need his team to turn up on the offense from here out.

Gold and Grey had very different experiences in their Week One outings–Captain Joel Gattey’s Gold came out on the losing end of a heated, high-scoring dog fight with Atomic Blue, while Captain Jeremy Copp’s Grey plodded through the most pedestrian of low-scoring ties with Lime. While Grey benefitted from a full bench in their one point result, Gold had a fair excuse in ‘key absences’ for their opening L, and expected a better return in Week Two with the return of ‘The Vick Boys’™, and the very-much-anticipating return of goalie god, Alex Theis. The only ‘key absence’ in this Gold go-around was ‘scoring punch’. In fact, neither team could find ‘the touch’ through two, with Theis a perfect 10/10 in his first action in roughly two calendar years, and Matt Henderson stopping 6/6 the other way. The scorelessness would cease at 7:02 in the third, though, with Pat Gladstone flexing her dynamic skills to tickle twine past Theis and push Grey to a 1-0 edge (Jon Zygelman). That was all, folks…one goal to rule them all, with Henderson (14/14) holding on to preserve the shutout and seal the 1-0 win for Grey over an eerily ineffective Gold side. Theis (16/17) was very good in his not-quite-triumphant return, but much like Meglich…you cannot win if your team does not score. There just seems to be something about Captain Copp’s teams…they find a way to win. Grey now has TWO goals in two games, and yet they are 1-0-1. This reporter can no longer hang his hat on the substantial rack that is ‘well, they have The Silencer™ in nets’ as the reason for yet another strong season…there is just some kind of mojo in those ranks. Copp & Company will look to keep that mojo flowing in a Week Three throwdown with one of only two teams with fewer goals-for this season (Orange), while Gold will look to snap out of an early season funk and push themselves back into the playoff fray in a meeting with White.

If any future opponent of Captain Rob Gaudio’s Atomic Blue needs something to keep them up at night (we could all use less sleep, after all), here it is…Atomic Blue leads the league out of the gate with ten goals scored in two games…and their goalie is f’ing Silas Perks! While ‘The Silencer’™ did get ‘touched up’ in his first outing of the season, surrendering four goals, and posting a save percentage of just .714, he still earned the W…and getting ‘touched up’ has likely only served to refocus the man. It was some relief to Lime to learn that Perks would be out of the lineup for this match, but without the services of Captain Zach Salt, Chris Fiore, Marc Lapointe, Jon Cima, and *GASP* Justin Ker (!), they knew they would need something more along the lines of divine intervention to survive this segunda semana skirmish. Somebody get the 4S Ranch Fire Department on standby for Sunday afternoons, because Vance Morra is a major wildfire risk. After a 3 and 1 POTW performance in Atomic Blue’s Week Won win, Morra went back for more-a the same in Week Two. His late first period tally (Mostafa Azab & Captain Gaudio) gave the favorites the first leg up, but Lime kept pushing, in spite of the short bench and a very lopsided shot count (13-2 in Atomic Blue’s favor through one). The pushback proved profitable, with Eric Willard cashing in with a blistering snap off a Dan Jurgen’s draw, past Eric Kroeker to even the score at one apiece. Kroeker may not (yet, anyway) be mentioned in the same breath as ‘The Silencer’™, but that would be all the ‘noise’ he would allow from Lime, while Blue went on to finish strong and wrap a second win with two goals in the third. The first of those two belonged to, who else…Morra (Captain Gaudio & Azab), and the cake icing came courtesy of Captain Gaudio himself (Shawna Hamon & Azab). So…no Silas, no problem, as Kroeker (12/13) filled in fabulously against a depleted, but determine Lime side, securing the 3-1 win, and keeping Atomic Blue parked at the top of the standings as the only ‘perfect’ team through two weeks of play. Captain Salt has been living it up in Europe, but should return to face his old BLF (best linemate forever), Mark DeGraffenreid, and Brown in a post-holiday Week Three match.

I (usually) do my very best to avoid over indulging in hyperbole, but if you read the headline blurb, you already know what is coming in this recap. If you skipped the headline, or need a refresher, this paragraph will serve as a permanent (?) accounting of THE GREATEST COMEBACK IN SDFHL HISTORY…BAR NONE. Before there can be a ‘comeback’, there has to be a…come (?), and that part of the story belonged to Captain Jon Salt and his Heather Blue crew. If you’re new to the league (or not at all observant…or both), Jon Salt has the most feared shot in the league…so much so, that opponents will do everything they can to throw bodies in front of him from any range, any angle, anywhere…any time…he’s always a snipe threat. Brown had managed this default defensive strategy fairly well over the course of the first period, keeping Salt’s curvy, corner-finding cruise missile from being unleashed unchallenged, but a clean draw win for Luke Wolmer led to an open look for Salt, and he snapped the first goal of the game past rookie netminder, Mason Holcomb. An odd/fluky second goal bounced in past Holcomb early in the second to make it 2-0 Blue (Ralph Feuer from Ty Pereira and TK Mason), and a second Salt strike (from Wolmer and Craig Russell) less than a minute later had Brown players’ heads hanging and hands wringing. Kalen Hunter arrived at the rink at around this time, and (as expected) his presence made a drastic difference in the course of the remaining sixteen minutes of play. Still, in spite of the shot edge flipping from 7-1 in Blue’s favor through one period of play to 21-6 in Brown’s favor the rest of the way, the remainder of the middle period, and almost all of the third saw nothing but fruitless frustration for Captain Ryan Karns’ squad. That’s when the history happened. With roughly 90 seconds remaining, and a draw in Blue’s end, Brown pulled their goalie, and set up to salvage a peck of pride and a smidge of swagger with a late conversion. BAM…Sadie Hellstrom finishes a feed from Hunter to do just that at 1:20…lineup at center…Brown possession…Holcomb back to the bench for the extra attacker…BAM…Andy Strathman seeing eye snap from the point at 0:39 (once again, from Hunter). Now the buzz is really on, but what are the odds of Brown actually scoring a thir…BOOM…Captain Karns tucks home the third Brown goal in a 64 second span (from Strathman and Hunter) to bring Brown all the way back from 0-3 down to tie this one for good at 3-3! I mean…you could not have scripted a more insane, more inspired finish for Karns & Company. Or, rather, you could have, but viewers would deem it ‘totally unrealistic’. Holcomb (10/13) got his steps in running to the bench repeatedly in the final minutes of play, and also kept his early career record lossless at 1-0-1. Eric Kroeker (19/22) and Heather Blue suffered what really has to feel like a loss after the late surge, but now also share a lossless line (1-0-1) with Brown, Grey, and Atomic Blue.