Navy sailed to an easy win over Orange to open the Week Nine slate. It was same story, different Sunday, as the Salt brothers combined for 5 and 4, and Deborah Finucane racked up another four assists in the 7-0 spank job. Patrick Fusco and Anthony Cerasuolo played supporting roles with supporting goals, with Cerasuolo’s late first period tally holding up as the only edge that Chris Tran (24/24) would need. Navy remain in striking distance of the playoff catbird seat with the win, while Orange enter their last game of the season this Sunday needing a point or better against Silver to guarantee passage to September.
Every Week Nine game was lopsided, and Green took the baton from Navy and bludgeoned a woebegone White with it, 4-0. Kevin ‘K Dub’ Wilkinson did double damage in the first, and Steve Jones equaled that feat over the course of the reaming two periods, as Captain Chad Goins & Company officially booked bottle service at the playoff party. Jones, and new recruit, Julie Ott, each collected two assists in the win, and Chuck Bender (6/6) chalked up a ho hum shutout as Nick Vacchio’s stand-in. Green can make headway toward the top in a clash with front-running Yellow this Sunday, while White will have to continue the fight for their playoff lives without Jeff Anderson, who will be serving the second game of a two game suspension as his mates take on Black.
If you let the winnings ride from your 120:1 Week Eight ‘Kamal Gill will actually show up to play’ bet, rolling it into a Week Nine 2,000,000:1 ‘Kamal will make back to back games’ wager, you are probably reading this from the deck of your new yacht. Gill showed up, and showed up on the score sheet, powering Black to a crucial 4-0 win over Silver with a 1 and 2 flourish. The news from Captain Chris Malki is that this would be the last game of the season, and indeed the last of Gill’s SDFHL career, as he makes his way back to his home along the Vacan Sea in his native Absentia later this week. Connor Miller has been tapped as a replacement, and they may well need his power to provide the point or more they still need to ensure playoff safety. Mark Scelfo, Joe Malki (GWG), and Erin Dowrey (SHG) gave Black primary punch from ‘secondary’ sources in the win, and Chris Tran (19/20) followed his 24/24 shutout of Orange earlier in the evening with another sparkling substitute showing. Silver continue their string of vital encounters this Sunday as they take on Orange. A win will almost assuredly vault them over the cut line, while a loss may well eliminate them, and at best will leave them at the mercy of potential spoilers, Teal, in the final week of play.
Not much has gone right for Captain Mark DeGraffenreid and ‘Antealfa’ this season. Still, with reinforcements in place in Week Nine in the form of Ryan Belbin and Rob Gaudio, and with a full compliment of ten players assembled for the first time all season, hope was still in the hearts of the denizens of the deep standings. Yellow made the euthanasia quick, and mostly painless, marching to an uber-easy 5-0 win, and laying Teal to rest in the first of three plots outside the gates of Playoff Land. Mara Bernd converted a sweet passing play with a one time backhanded sweep to account for the game-winner in the first, and from there it was the Wirt & Willard show, with Josh and Eric each tallying once on the power play in the second, then once again at even strength in the third to make sure Teal was good and dead. Jimm Reifsnyder filled in for Alex Theis (who is the replacement for Nick Adkins), but Yellow literally could have won this game with an empty net. That’s right…Teal mustered FOUR shots on goal! All that remains for Teal is the potential to play spoiler in their Week Eleven tilt with Silver. A win for Yellow against Green this Sunday will lock them into the top playoff spot, but even a loss will have them well-positioned for the pole position going into the final week of play.
I’m not ready to suggest we are witnessing a torch passing just yet, but Pink’s do or die 4-1 defeat of Red was not written and directed by Andrew Jacobsen, as it absolutely would have been in years past. Patrick ‘Hatrick’ Walker delivered the 1-2-3-4 punch in this one, scoring all four goals for the winning side to bloat his impressive rookie season numbers to 9 and 2 in seven games. Walker has accounted for just under half of Pink’s goals this season (9/19), and his latest outburst may well be the season saving salvo. While the win keeps Pink from joining Antealfa in the graveyard just yet, Captain Copp & Company can only watch and hope from their bye week bleacher seats that everything goes their way this Sunday. Any combination of two of these results this Sunday: a Silver loss to Orange, a Red loss to Navy, and a White loss to Black would pave the way for Pink to defy they odds and squeak into the playoff picture in Week Eleven. The problem…their final opponent is Navy (*sad trombone*). It will surely take more than even Walkeresque level heroics to come out of that one alive…