Captain Chris Malki celebrated every period with a goal, and provided the primary assist on Mark Scelfo’s first of the season, leading his team to a 5-0 breezer over Brown. Justin Stege rounded out the scoring for Black, who remain undefeated, and un-scored-upon through the first two weeks of play. Alex Theis filled in flawlessly for Sean Kelly, stopping 10/10, while Don Tran fell prey to the Malki mayhem at the other end, dropping to 0-1-1 with a 22/27 line. Black will face the only other 2-0-0 side, Navy, in Week Three. The season is very young, but this matchup does have the makings of a Cup Final preview…
I’ve been waiting to type ‘Dick came up big’ for a while now, and Green’s Jason Dick has finally given me that opportunity…thank you, brother! Dick came up big for Green, breaking a scoreless tie in the second with the first goal of his SDFHL career. The 1-0 edge would hold until midway through the final frame, when Steve Goncalo struck back for Silver on the power play. This one looked to close out as a deadlock dandy, but super sub Julie Ott came up big (inspired by Dick) with the game-winning strike in the final minute of play to lift Green to a 2-1 win. It was another quiet night for superstar sniper, Steve Jones, whose assist on the Ott winner serves as his only point through the first two games. Nick Vacchio earned his first career win in nets, stopping 14/15, while Chuck Bender (15/17) dropped to 0-2-0 with another tough, one goal loss.
Yellow bounced back nicely from a 5-0 no lube Navy pounding in Week One to squeeze Orange 5-2. Harsh Wanigaratne was a man possessed, racking up assists on all three Yellow goals in the first (Josh Wirt/Jack Traughber/Philip Burke). Orange made a game of it from there, with Carl Vankoughnett immediately cashing in on a Burke Delay Of Game penalty late in the first, then cutting the lead to one in the second (both from Kris Tosczak). Yellow had the last laughs, with Mara Bernd’s first of the season, and Philip Burke’s second of the game putting the game out of reach for good in the third. Nick Adkins (20/22) evened his record in nets at 1-1-0, while Steve Deppensmith remained winless at the other end with a 15/20 effort.
Captain Salt’s Navy picked up where they left off in Week One, cruising to a 5-0 lead through two periods against a frantic and futile Teal team. Rob LaVigne got his team on the board in the first, scoring just the second non-Salt goal for Navy. The brothers got back to work in the second period with two goals apiece (Deborah Finucane collected her customary three assists, of course). A pair of late third period goals from Captain Mark DeGraffenreid provided a shred of pride for the long-defeated Teal side, yet was the proverbial ‘too little, too late’ in the 5-2 thrashing. Chris Tran suffered his first GA blemishes, but kept his win-loss record perfect with a 25/27 outing, while Nick Meglich was strong, but over-Salted in his first losing outing with Teal (21/26). Something has to give when Navy faces Black this Sunday…set your DVR for that one, folks!
The nightcap brought the Week Two slate back to parity town, following lopsided results in three of the first four games. It was the season opener for Captain Kevin Dinino’s White, and they found twine first late in the first, with Tim Helmbrecht converting (from Dinino, himself). Helmbrecht had a helper of his own on Chris Tran’s first of the season in the second, which would ultimately serve as decider in a 2-1 White win. Patrick Walker’s first career SDFHL goal (from Hima Joshi) on the heels of Tran’s tally did keep things interesting to the end, but Cory Brin (30/31) was the story in this one…a story with another sad ending for Pink. I’ll spare you the box score attendance check…Andrew Jacobsen was in the lineup again for the losing side. The living legend has now been held scoreless in back to back games. We have our league historians and statisticians working around the clock to find out if that has ever happened before…I sincerely doubt it has.