Our cover team this week has been making the papers for all the wrong reasons, having dropped from moderate to strong contenders through their first three games to ‘currently out of the playoffs’ with their ineptitude since. Aqua limped into a Week Twelve meeting with White on an 0-3-1 slide, and with both top pick David Schlatter and de facto ‘engine’ Matt Rogers out of the lineup, the hopes of reversing that tragic trend were not high on Captain Steph’s bench. White had already secured their playoff passage coming in, but were looking to bounce back after getting knocked around by Purple 6-1 the week prior. Captain Maureen’s team came out very strong in the early going, dominating play from the opening faceoff, but Chris Tran’s superb form kept any damage at bay until the final tick of the first period clock. To add insult to the injury of (literal) last second timing, that opening White goal was scored by SDFHL super senior citizen, Steve Linke (from Brennan Abel and Vance Morra). The old man would return the favor on Abel’s early second period tally, which (with respect) was one of the flukier balls to find a home this season, bouncing in off Anthony Cerasuolo’s midsection. How they go in doesn’t matter, it’s how many go in, and Aqua was only able to muster one response — Mark DeGraffenreid from Brian Sheptycki and Cerasuolo midway through the third. Chuck Bender (14/15) was hardly tested, as White’s iron-clad defense kept less than half of Aqua’s meager shot total in the ‘actually a threat to score’ column, while Tran’s stellar 29/31 effort was spoiled by a drooling elder, one tick of the first period clock, and a hard luck own goal. The 2-1 win keeps White comfortably in the top half of the standings, with an outside shot at the top spot on the line in their remaining two games. Aqua will need a good result in one or both of their remaining games (Olive and Red), or they will concede their playoff place to color cousins, Tropical Blue (or possibly even Red).
Charcoal and Royal Blue met in a heavyweight bout with little more than pride, playoff positioning, and scoring title stats at stake. Eric Herrmann’s 11 and 7 coming in gave him just a one point edge over a fittingly ‘OP’ Owen Perks (11 and 6). The offensive potency of both teams (well beyond the two aforementioned studs) made this match an appealing post season appetizer, and promised to be a regular season ‘great show’. It did not disappoint. THE Chad Goins (his words), rumored consort of Captain Janet, struck first for Royal Blue on the penalty kill at 6:09 in the first. Eric Herrmann collected the sole assist on that tally, and soloed a (breathtaking) goal of his own later in the period. Charcoal, in the personage of…who else…Owen Perks had responded to tie the game roughly a minute before Herrmann restored the one goal lead, and Herrmann’s second of the game (from Carl Vankoughnett and Mr. Goins) doubled the difference through two periods of play. Both Don Tran (15/18) and Nick Meglich (20/21) held up well under the weight of the two top scorers, but Meglich was a smidge surer, and Royal Blue’s super star was a mite brighter, as Royal Blue held on through a scoreless third to celebrate a big 3-1 win. I should also note that Charcoal scraped the (very) bottom of the barrel and brought in Melissa Busby to replace Nadia Connelly. Busby promptly (and not surprisingly) flailed and failed on glorious chance after glorious chance for Charcoal, begging the question ‘why not just play with four out there when Shawna needs a rest’. If you’re scoring at home, Herrmann keeps his seat on top of the scoring charts with 21 points (13 and 8), while Perks remains in striking distance with two games to play at 18 (12 and 6). The win keeps Royal Blue just two points behind standings leader, Silver, whom they will face this Sunday. A win for Royal Blue would move them into first, but that position is likely to be very temporary, with Silver holding a game in hand to close out the season. The loss drops Charcoal to 5-3-0 leading into a Week Thirteen test of their high-powered offense versus White’s shutdown defense.
The middle matchup between Tropical Blue and Red was dripping in playoff implications, with both teams desperately desperate to scrape together enough points to push past pitiful prior performances and into playoff position. At 1-5-1, a win for Captain Emily Bennington’s Red would give them five points in the standings, keeping cut line straddlers, Aqua, and at least one other team well within reach with two games to play. A win for Captain Kyra Forsyth’s 1-5-2 Topical Blue would give them two straight wins, and (miracle of miracles) would put them ahead of Aqua and out of the cellar in the final playoff position with (alas) just one game left on their schedule. If you happened to get a peek at the player of the week, you know that Nick Vacchio was the man of this match. In a twisted twist, Vacchio is actually on the roster for both teams, but Red was obligated to find a sub for him in nets, as is the way. That sub (Nick Meglich) was under siege throughout, facing persistent pressure as Tropical Blue pulled out all the stops in their late season push for a minor miracle playoff conversion. Dan Jurgens provided the first punch for Tropical Blue late in the first (from Vacchio and Christopher Fiore), then assisted on Vacchio’s game-winner just 0:31 later to improve the lead to 2-0. It was Vacchio again (from Jurgens, again) to build the lead to three in the second, and Red would muster just a lone, late response from Joe Gaudio (from brother Rob and Too Tall Tyler Winstead). Don Tran (22/23) got a taste of victory in a fill-in role, after absorbing the loss for his true team (Charcoal), and the shoe was on the other foot for Nick Meglich (29/32) who suffered a surrogate loss for Red following a win with his real roster, Royal Blue. So, with the 3-1 win, coupled with the results from the 4:00pm game, meant that Tropical Blue would move into a tie with Aqua at six points, even in the win column tie breaker, and holding the head-to-head tie breaker…but also having just one game left to play to Aqua’s two. The loss puts Red at 1-6-1, but (insanely enough) still alive in the playoff picture. They will need to beat Purple this Sunday (no small task), and will need some help (in the form of Olive beating Aqua this Sunday, and a Charcoal win over Tropical Blue in the final week of play), but if they manage to sneak past Purple, and that help does arrive, they will have their playoff fate in their own hands as they take on Aqua on April 30th.
The season long funeral procession for Captain Shelby Shattuck’s ‘Black Widow’ continued to wind through the streets of SDFHLtown, with Purple bearing the pall in Week Thirteen. The good news for Black…they scored twice as many goals in this game as they had in seven prior games combined. The bad news…Purple scored twice as many goals as Black in this game. Jon Salt put Purple in front late in the first (from Brandon Olsen and Rob LaVigne), but an Alan Razoky sighting at 3:55 in the second (from Justin Stege and Jordan Pynn) drew the underdogs level at 1-1. A pair of late second period strikes — Captain Kerri Sevenbergen from Salt and Olsen, then Olsen from Janine Ulloa abruptly upended any Black hopes for a upset win, and Eric Willard’s goal (from Olsen) at 6:16 in the third was just another shovelful of dirt on Black’s coffin (the coffin now having made its way to the cemetery plot, if you want to follow the imagery along). Matt DeBerry put a brief pause in da burial with his first of the season at 5:02 (from Mark Daquipa and Captain Shelby Shattuck), but Reverend Patrick Theis (22/24) cleared his throat, and completed his eulogy with ‘yea, and Purple laid Black to rest on that day, having scored two fold thine enemy’s two‘. The plate was then passed to collect donations for the Brotherhood Of Unsupported Goalies…a cause near and dear to Matt Henderson (20/24). RIP, Black…may winged hat tricks forever circle your shoulders in the after season. Meanwhile, back on the living plane, Purple have officially officially secured safe playoff passage with the win at 4-3-1. They will look to inter another quasi-corpse in Red this Sunday…
Two teams riding lengthy unbeaten streaks met to put those streaks to the test in Week Thirteen. Captain Wendy Enright’s Olive lost their first two games of the season, but had not lost or even tied since. Captain Audrey Stratton’s Silver side had, well, never lost, and had allowed just one tie in a mid-March meeting with White. So, while both teams sat very comfortably in playoff position already, with really nothing to lose in this match, neither wanted to set their unbeaten streak aside, and both hoped for something of a ‘statement win’ to further bolster confidence heading into the final weeks of play. A scoreless first saw Silas Perks as the far busier of the two netminders, as the MVP-to-be stopped all seven shots he faced, compared with the meager pair deflected by Zach Siemer at the other end. Erin Dowrey continued his sparkling swan song season with his fourth on the campaign (from Josh Wirt) at 6:43 in the second, but Zach Salt responded with a pair of goals later in the frame (the first from Sadie Hellstrom and Matt Gottfried, and the second from Captain Stratton) to give Silver a 2-1 edge through two. The third period clock wound towards its final tick, and it certainly looked as though ‘The Silencer’ would secure another W for Silver, but Josh Tran found a will and a way to wind one home with just 0:27 to play to provide what is perhaps the most apropos final score between two teams that refuse to lose…a 2-2 point splitter. Perks (18/20) remained the busier of the goalies throughout, and ACTUALLY ALLOWED TWO GOALS for just the second time in eight games. Siemer (11/13) surrendered the pair of Salt strikes in a busy second frame (facing ten shots in that period, alone), but Olive’s defense was sublimely stingy in the first and third, forcing Zach to make just three total saves over that twenty minute span. The result keeps Silver at the top of the pile at 6-0-2, with only a few potential threats to that perch remaining, including Olive (5-2-1).