Orange rolled into the Final as the favorite ‘home team’, in spite of their lower seed, by virtue of having dispatched challenger, Grey, 5-1 just two weeks prior. The absence of Chuck Russell, David Schlatter, and Kevin Dinino had to put the pole sitters a bit on edge, and many argued that it might be the edge Grey needed to pull off a double dip upset special. A late first period strike from Jim LaGrossa (assists to Jordan Pynn and Elyse Shattuck) made that possibility seem all the more possible, and a scoreless second kept the tempo and tension simmering. It wasn’t until 3:47 remaining in regulation that Eric Herrmann broke loose, and broke the scoreless drought for his side, leveling the ledger at 1-1. Both goalies were solid to spectacular throughout, with Chris Tran (20/21) refusing to relent after allowing the LaGrossa goal, and Parsa Mostafavi (25/26) shaking off a nasty pileup/collision in the crease in the late going to preserve the tie, and push the game to overtime.
Overtime bore no winning fruit, so it was off to the shootout, with either an encore clash for all the marbles, or a Cup-raising moment waiting in the wings. LaGrossa and Herrmann were both stymied in the first round, then Rob Gaudio and Gary Peters both converted in the second. Jordan Pynn, Josh Tran, Justin Stege, Ian Crooks, Elyse Shattuck, and Wendy Enright all tried, but failed to solve Tran and Mostafavi, and it was on to sudden death shootout! LaGrossa and Herrmann, the regular season co-scoring champs with 19 points apiece…do or die…all on the line. LaGrossa…no…not enough to best Tran. Herrmann…the much ballyhooed badass, and empirically the greatest player in SDFHL history…GOAL…game over…Orange over Grey in sudden death shootout, 2-1. It was an incredible season, and an incredible game from both sides. Congratulations to Orange, and kudos to Grey on pushing to a phenomenal (albeit, futile) finish to a great playoff run.
