Prosperity

The main goal of the SDFHL draft is to (hopefully) produce even teams, with any given team having a chance to beat any other given team on any given Sunday. Of course, not all teams are drafted equally…some captains just pull the right strings, find a diamond in the rough, or just manage to formulate/foster great team chemistry out of the gate. Sprinkle in a key absence or two (or more), ‘bad luck’, and other such factors, and lopsided results like the pair of 5-1 Week One romps, and even the ‘avert your eyes, children’ 10-1 Week Three thrashing can and will litter the results page. Week Seven was near parity perfection, however, with two ties, two one goal decisions, and one two goal ‘convincing win’ going into the books. Captain Jeremy Copp’s Teal were hoping for a win of any ilk, after limping and languishing through four losses coming in, while Captain Joel Gattey’s Lime hoped (and perhaps even expected) to table Teal’s redemption plans and even their own record at 2-2-1. Alex Giummo put Teal on top with his fifth of the season at 1:04 (Jim LaGrossa), and his sixth at 3:58 in the second (Josh Tran) had Copp & Company enjoying their first two goal lead of the season. Giummo would return the favor to Tran at 3:50 in the third, providing the lone assist on JT’s third of the season and stretching Teal’s lead to a down-right-comfortable three goals. Brennen Abel finally answered for Lime with 1:27 to play (Joe Nguyen & Justin Stege), and while that strike did spoil the sparkling substitute shutout bid for Chuck Bender (26/27), there would be no spoiling Teal’s first taste of victory, 3-1 over Lime. Don Tran (8/11) might start taking his team’s lack of goal support in his starts personally, as his season record falls to 0-3-0 behind just one Lime goal (Lime scored just one goal in his first loss, and two in his second). Neither team is breathing easy as we enter the second half of the season, but with an energized Teal facing 1-3-1 Red, and Lime taking on 5-0-0 Black this Sunday, we may well see some movement to and from the standings cellar this weekend…

Captain Bao Nguyen’s Green and Captain Ryan Karns’ Purple rolled into Week Seven with matching 2-2-0 records, and (spoiler alert) rolled out of Week Seven with their standings twinhood still intact. Of course, the only way for that to be true would be a tie…the first of two on our biggest parity party Sunday in recent memory. Tyler Winstead put Purple on the winning path with his first of the season at 1:19 in the first (Carl Vankoughnett), and Vankoughnett pushed Purple further along that path just 0:22 later (Brendan Jew). One late period goal is enough to stun and demoralize an opponent, but two is staggering. The consolation for Green…it was ‘still early’, and when Chad Goins converted on an extended Geoff Downes penalty at 5:11 in the second (Joe Malki), both teams settled back into ‘up for grabs’ mode. Jon ‘JZ’ Zygelman ‘grabbed’ early in the third, potting this third of the season at 9:47 (William Teglia) to knot the score at twos, and both Chuck Bender (10/12) and a returning John Kushneryk (15/17) made sure that it would remain tied to the end. So, while a 2-2 tie is not the result you dream of on Sunday morning, the point apiece keeps both teams a smidge safer from the cut line at 2-2-1 with four games to play. Both teams have a chance to climb in Week Eight, with Purple facing 2-1-2 Orange, and Green taking on 3-2-0 Gold in ‘Middle Ground Mania’ this Sunday.

Early season struggles can sometimes be a positive. While a tough start can certainly be demoralizing, and while you do need to start stocking points in the standings before it is genuinely too late, there is something to be said for the benefits of learning from loss and building to your best. Captain Mostafa Azab’s Red stumbled and tumbled through a very tough start to the season, opening with a 5-1 loss to Gold, following with a 10-1 lambasting at the hands of Lime, then showing signs of life, but ultimately falling 5-3 to Black. Even their 3-3 tie with Orange in Week Five had a rusty lining, with their opponent snatching away their first W with just 0:45 to play. Key absences played a major part in Red’s 0-3-1 start, but with everyone in the lineup for the first time all season, and with Captain John Boddy out of the lineup for Blue, the scene was set for the next phase of ‘build to your best’ for Azab & Associates. Josh Wirt got the ball rolling for Red at 4:11 in the first (Captain Azab & Eric Caligiuri), and doubled his team’s delight at 3:31 (Captain Azab). It would be Red’s second two-goal first period lead in as many weeks, and Ali Nabipour made it 3-0 with his unassisted second of the season at 2:14. While a three goal lead certainly confers confidence, Red were knew they would have more work to do to avoid another pitfall and finally secure a winning result. Eli Schonbrun’s goal at 8:35 in the second (Steve Linke) underscored that point, but Captain Azab restored his team’s calm resolve with a response at 1:08 (Caligiuri). Any and all of that Red ‘calm’ turned to caution and chaos in the third, as Schonbrun’s second of the game at 5:21 cut the lead back to two, and Sean ‘Da Kid’ Kelly’s first of the season (Linke & Schonbrun) slid Blue back into striking distance of another Red parade spoiler with a plump 4:22 remaining. If you have your eyes and ears tuned to the season storylines at all, you know that while Red came in merely seeking their first win of the season, rookie netminder, Gabe Davenport, remained in search of his first career win. A late game-tying (or worse, game-winning) goal for Blue would not just be a big blow to Red’s playoff hopes, but would break this writer’s heart just a bit. A scoreless 4:22 later, my heart remained intact, as did that 4-3 lead…a HUGE win for Davenport and Red! CONGRATULATIONS, GABE! Congratulations to the entire Red team who, while still hovering around the cutline at 1-3-1, are now officially ‘building to their best’ as we enter the second half of the Fall League 2025 season.

The playoff cutline is a yard stick more in the ‘measuring things’ sense and less the ‘smacking your knuckles when you act up in class’ sense at this point in the season, but at 1-2-1, Captain Rob Gaudio’s White were looking to move out of late season ‘smacking’ distance in a meeting on the standings ladder with Captain Mark Nagy’s 2-1-1 Orange. We’ve covered my lack of ability to accurately predict SDFHL roster potency, game outcomes, and Cup chances in recent weeks, but I saw this game as a ‘very good match, on paper’. Orange were all present and accounted for, while White would be without the services of Dorothy Kline (Shelby Shattuck in to sub) and top three threat, Jackson Tomaszewski. So…you could skew the ‘paper’ favorite Orange’s direction a bit, but White had a tinge of frustrated desperation bubbling that might prove enough to carry them through. Captain Nagy put Orange up early, notching his first of the season at 7:00 (Will Heinl), Dan Jurgens responded for White at 5:41 (Captain Gaudio & Shelby Shattuck), and Kalen Hunter restored Orange’s lead with an unassisted-and-league-leading eighth on the season. A scoreless second came and went, with the near-identical shot totals through two (13-12, in White’s favor) seemingly serving as proof that I had (for once) correctly predicted a close contest. The third period shot totals were not especially lopsided, with White holding an 8-5 edge, but White won the one statistical battle that matters in that final ten minutes of play…goals. One goal, to be exact, a game-tying effort from Captain Gaudio himself at 4:15 (Ty Pereira & Jurgens). Both Nick Meglich (19/21) and Jon Cima (15/17) deserve praise in earning their respective teams a point, with both sides now at least one point north of late November peril. The 2-2 tie was the second such result in a near perfect procession of parity in Week Seven, but both Orange and White will hope for a less equitable result (in their favor, of course) as we hit the downhill run to the second season.

We are certainly used to rainouts in the SDFHL, and we have even had games cancelled for excessive heat, but Week Six saw the first ever cancellation due to fire (or, at least, a fire literally feet from the rink). Captain Hima Joshi’s Gold was enjoying a 1-0 lead through the first period of their Week Six meeting with Blue, and with Captain Boddy and Sean Kelly out of the lineup, were pumped and primed to continue the rather lopsided run of play, improve their record to 4-1-0, and secure some momentum going into a big Week Seven showdown with Black. With the fire forcing evacuation, Gold would hold at 3-1-0, a bit less secure, and certainly no more stoked to see Captain Luke Wolmer’s 4-0-0 Black warming up as their Week Seven opponent. A scoreless first saw Gold hold the favorites to just four shots…the problem was the ONE shot mustered in response. Gold’s shot total improved to four in the second period, but Black’s improved in kind to eight, and Captain Wolmer finally found twine with one of those eight at 3:12 (Andrew Wong) to give his team the lead and move him into a tie for first on the scoring charts with Kalen Hunter at twelve points (6 and 6). Joshi’s troops (in Joshi’s absence…Jenna Chercoe filled in) spent the second break focusing themselves on producing more shots on goal, and while they did finally turn the tide on that front in the final frame (13-6, in their favor), it was Black who would strike next, with Riley Mann providing a vital insurance policy with 1:36 to play (Wong). Mann’s fourth of the season was rendered ‘vital’ by Christopher Fiore’s first (!) for Gold at 0:51 (Owen Perks), which set up a frenetic fight to the finish. ‘Frenetic’ was finally replaced with ‘fruitless’ and ‘fight’ with ‘finished’ for Gold, as Will Heinl (17/18) and Black held on for a 2-1 win to remain undefeated through their first five games. Mason Holcomb (16/18) sustained his strong statistical standing in spite of the loss, remaining atop the goalie board with a .914/1.67/0 SO line. Wolmer & Company will look to remain unstained in a match with a down-but-dangerous Lime, while Gold will look to rebound from the hiccup in momentum from ‘the fire game’ and a tough loss to the top dogs as Week Eight play plays out this Sunday.