The Hole Package

Captain Jeremy Copp’s ‘The Final FronTeal’ brought zero wins, high hopes, and a splash of early season desperation with them to the rink in Week Five, with Captain John Boddy’s similarly-named ‘Star Trek Blue: Boddy’s Final Frontier’ standing between them and their first points in the Fall League 2025 race to playoff safety. I’ve made mention before that my post draft assessments are often wildly off the mark (pun intended) but if you had asked me in September which team would be 0-3-0 and which would be 2-1-0 coming into this match, I’d have confidently laid money on Teal having the much better record/being the much better team. As reality would have it, it was Copp & Company taking another blindfolded swing at the points piñata, hoping to knock at least one out and grab it before Boddy’s Blue could pounce. Alex Giummo gave Teal their FIRST LEAD OF THE SEASON (!) with his fourth at 5:27 in the first (Arnold Gonzales & Kerri Sevenbergen), and with a 13-3 Teal edge in shots, Blue was lucky (well, frankly, Chris Tranny) to not be down 4-0. OK…I need to make a quick plea…do NOT start calling him ‘Chris Tranny’, folks…I was…you see…I was simply making an adjective out of his name…grow up! The Teal shot domination continued through the second, with Copp’s Crew holding a 10-5 advantage in the period, and a 23-8 overall advantage going into the second break. The important number is that goal total, though, and with none recorded in the middle frame, Teal would have to hope they could make a 1-0 lead hold though ten more minutes of play. Captain Boddy would say ‘they’ with his third of the season at 5:25 (Sean Kelly & Steve Linke), Ramsey Ksar would say ‘could’ at 3:09 (Weston Oakley & Captain Boddy), and Oakley would say ‘not’ on the power play at 1:13 (Ksar & Tony Thinh). Josh Tran’s provided a last gasp Teal response with 0:11 to play (Andy Strathman), but alas for Teal…‘they could not’ hold a lead and would fall to 0-4-0 with the 3-2 loss to Blue. Chris ‘Do NOT Call Him Tranny’ Tran (30/32) was an absolute beast in this game, stealing a third win for Blue and (hard) earning first star honors. Will Heinl (18/21) was no slouch in a fill-in role for Matt Henderson, but Teal just continue to find the banana peel here in the first half of the season. If the turnaround is coming, it needs to come soon for Teal. A Week Six win over White would be a big first step, while a loss would leave them near dead, given that nine points is the typical (theoretical) playoff ticket. Blue’s second straight win has them at 3-1-0, confidently striding into a match with record twins, Gold, this Sunday…

Our Week Five cover team took to the court next, with Captain Luke Wolmer’s Black looking to push past Captain Ryan Karns’ Purple to remain perfect on the season and maintain their firm grasp on first place. Karns’ & Company came in as winners of their last two outings, a 6-4 brush past Teal, and a last minute 1-0 win over previously unbeaten Gold. The buzz about Black is that their skilled, speedy forwards are A LOT to contain, and with both Geoff Downes and Tyler Winstead out of the lineup for Purple, that already tall order donned eight inch heels. Riley Mann continued his torrid rookie scoring race pace, notching his third of the season at 3:33 in the first (Captain Wolmer), then returning the favor to Luke with the lone assist on Wolmer’s fourth of the season at 5:48 in the second. Trevor Vick got in on the scoring act with his sixth of the season (!) at 1:43, making Papa Tim proud…and also notching another ‘Papa Point’™ in the process for the lone assist. A three goal lead going into the final period of play is a steep hill to climb, but Darin Cerasuolo finally broke through for Purple with 0:31 to go before the second break (Brendan Jew & Ryan Karns), giving his mates some hope for a late rally and leveling the ledger a bit in the Trevor v Darin smack talk/bragging rights friendly feud. Will Heinl (15/16) would allow no further push from any Purple player, however, and Wolmer’s second of the game and fifth of the season boosted him into a tie with Orange’s Kalen Hunter for the league lead in points with eleven. Mann recorded the lone assist on Wolmer’s cherry atop the 4-1 winning sundae, tying him with Trevor Vick and a handful of other players for fifth on the scoring charts with eight points. So…4-0-0, three of the top nine scorers in the league, most goals-for, among the fewest goals-against, best goal differential, best shot differential…Black is THE team to beat so far this season. The loss drops Chuck Bender (10/14) and Purple back to 2-2-0 heading into a match with Red in which they would be considered considerable favorites. My team assessment and prediction skills may be off, but I have Purple finishing much higher than their current middle of the pack perch come mid-November.

With Teal and Red having failed to earn any points in the standings through three weeks of play, the ‘middle ground’ battles have a bit less of the typical urgency attached to them, but (almost) every game has some inherent importance in a nine game season, and neither Captain Bao Nguyen’s 1-2-0 Green nor Captain Rob Gadio’s 1-1-1 White could afford to tempt cut line fate too much longer. Both teams came in winless in their previous pair of outings, though White did earn a tie in the process of narrowly avoiding a win against Lime the Sunday prior. The team that could find a way to win this meat-of-the-season meeting would enjoy not only improved playoff prospects in the obvious wins and losses sense, but would also reap the added benefit of a potential late season tie breaker. Dan Jurgens put White on the board first with just eight ticks to go in the first period (Mark Scelfo), and while the shot totals stood dead even through one (6-6), a late period goal is typically a big boost for the scoring side, and a major mental blow to the scored-upon side. Dan Farrell would ease that ‘mental blow’ with his first career SDFHL goal at 5:11 in the second (William Teglia)…CONGRATULATIONS, DAN…but, Jackson Tomaszewski would spoil the milestone mazel tovs with his second of the season at 3:18 to lead White into the second break with the same one goal lead they held coming out of the first. The third period was all Green, though…all Joe Malki, to be exact. Malki knotted the score at 2-2 with his third of the season at 5:33, gave Green their first lead of the game with his fourth at 1:14 (Chad Goins), then iced the 4-2 win with an empty-netter at 0:53 (Teglia & Farrell). Nick Meglich (15/17) won the battle of sub goalies, standing in on the Green win for John Kushneryk, while Chuck Bender (17/20) absorbed the loss in lieu of White’s Jon Cima. The bounce back win for Nguyen & Company has them at .500 going into the midway point of the season, while the loss makes three straight winless weeks for Gaudio’s Group, who now find themselves at 1-2-1. The two teams face polar opposite challenges in Week Six, with Green bracing for impact with first place Black and White taking on dead last Teal. As noted in last week’s recaps, a win is a win, and a loss is a loss, but a Green win over Black, or a White loss to Teal…those are weighty results that could really dictate the trajectory of the second half of the season…

It’s been a rough start to the Fall League 2025 season for Captain Mostafa Azab’s Red. Attendance issues, injury issues, and a trio of games against tough teams to open the season (Gold, Lime, and Black) had them reeling into Week Five at 0-3-0. Key defensive piece, John Kushneryk, remained shelved coming into Red’s showdown with Captain Mark Nagy’s Orange, but with both Josh Wirt and Alec Noraditsky in the lineup together for just the second time, and a steadied and readied Gabe Davenport eager to capture his first SDFHL win, Red appeared primed to shake the o-fer monkey off their backs in a mid-season clash with a dash of the ‘do or die’ spice typically reserved for late season matches. Orange (most likely) felt that this was an opportunity to improve their 2-1-0 record, plump their playoff prospects, and possibly pad their personal point totals, especially with the league’s scoring leader up front (Kalen Hunter), and a clearly possessed and focused goalie at their backs (Nick Meglich). Newcomer, Ali Nabipour, was first to act, potting his first career SDFHL goal at 1:40 in the first to put Red on the front foot (Shawna Hamon & Alec Noraditsky). CONGRATULATIONS, ALI! Wirt would convert just 0:23 later to double Red’s edge (Hamon & Caligiuri)…the first two goal lead for the uberunderdogs to this point in the season. A scoreless second set the stage for a wild third period, with Orange finally fighting back, and Red scrambling to preserve their precious lead. Parsa Mostafavi scored his first of the season on the power play to cut the lead to one at 8:28 (Kalen Hunter & Captain Nagy), and Kalen Hunter’s unassisted strike at 4:54 drew Orange level and sent a familiar wave of failure fear through Red ranks. Sometimes it is the unlikeliest of heroes who…do unlikely hero things (Pulitzer, please), and Eric Caligiuri (of seven goals in 121 career games fame) was that unlikely hero for Red on this night, lacing home a powerplay point shot to snatch the lead back late (2:38 from Wirt and Noraditsky). With the clock winding to the final minute of play, it looked as though Captain Azab and his mates would finally have their day, but a Wirt tripping minor at 0:57 meant that Orange would have (at least) one last shot to spoil Red’s victory party. Jenna Chercoe took that last shot and made it count, poking a loose ball past Devenport’s pads at 0:45 (Will Heinl & Weston Nawrocki) to save the game for Orange, sink the hearts of Red, and (frankly) bum out most of the spectators in attendance who were pulling hard for the ‘little guys’. Gabe Davenport (15/18) may not have earned his first career win, but his first career tie is a huge point for Red, and finally has his team thinking they could make a competitive run. CONGRATULATIONS, GABE! Nick Meglich (25/28) was brilliant once again, but his Herculean efforts alone (to the tune of a .911 while facing BY FAR the most shots of any goalie so far at 112!) cannot win games for Orange. Orange will look for more punch and passion in the ‘Citrus Bowl’ with Lime this Sunday, while Red will hope to water their newly-planted seed of momentum in a battle with a beefy but beatable Purple.

The Week Five nightcap was billed (in my brain) as an intriguing matchup between two strong teams bound for playoff passage, and quite possibly a sneaky Cup run. Captain Hima Joshi’s Gold came in off a crushing 1-0 loss to Purple, with the dagger coming with just 0:31 remaining, while Captain Joel Gattey’s Lime entered on the heels of a thrilling 2-2 tie with White, with dearly departed (to Germany, not the afterlife) Silas Perks saving the day with just 0:34 to play. With Perks shipped off to Europe, Chris Tran joined the Lime ranks to help stop ‘That Other Perks’ (Owen) from guiding Gold to a bounce back win. That challenge proved…challenging (Pulitzer, please), even with the very veteran, very seasoned, very smart Tran patrolling the blue line, as Owen would open the scoring just 0:59 in (Mark DeGraffenreid & Shelby Shattuck). Another entry in the ‘unlikely hero’ file came at 8:39 in the second, with Greg Francisco collecting a Mark DeGraffenreid ‘pass’ and pushing it between Don Tran’s pads to make it 2-0 Gold. The likeliest of heroes led the come back for Lime, as Brennen Abel posted his second of the season at 6:59 in the second, then his third unassisted at 9:40 in the third. The 2-2 tie simmered through the bulk of the remaining third period clock, but it was Perks again at 1:48 (Shattuck) to give Gold back the lead, then a Perks’ empty-netter to cap the hat trick and seal the 4-2 winning deal for Gold. The triple threat performance brought Perks into a tie for the goal scoring lead with Kalen Hunter (7), and made the choice for first star of this game and open and shut case. Mason Holcomb (20/22) continued his sizzling season (check the goalie stat charts, folks) with another incredible effort for Gold, while Don Tran (16/19) was stout, but ultimately stung with his second loss in as many games for Lime. The win moves Gold to 3-1-0…comfortable for now, but steeling themselves for a bruising pair of upcoming games (Blue and Black). Lime fall to 1-2-1 with the loss, not nearly as north of the cut line as they would like to be heading into the ‘Citrus Bowl’ with Orange this Sunday.