Work Hard/Prey Hard

Captain Zach Siemers ‘Siegulls’ are a ‘lock down’ team by almost every measure, but a closer examination reveals what we all already know all too well…Silas ‘The Silencer’™ Perks is a bad dude. White came into Week Six play having allowed ONE OR FEWER goals in each of their first four games, and you might be inclined to believe that a large part of the credit for that stunning stat would be owed to Captain Siemer’s ‘defense first’ draft strategy. However, including their Week Six clash with Captain Chad Goins’ Red, Siemer’s squad has actually allowed the third highest shots-against total (111) in the league! So, you flip to the goaltending statistics page, and there’s that ‘bad dude’…sitting pretty at the top of the pile by a mile with a .955/1.00/1 SO line. Whether it is The Silencer™ just fully feeling it, or some combination of goaltending and a Linke-led defense limiting ‘quality chances’, White’s 3-0-1 record coming into Week Five play was proof that they have a working winning concept. Captain Goins’ group came in on a two game slide, dropping their record to 1-3-0, and leaving them thirsty for a win against one of only two remaining lossless teams. The first period came and went with no score, but served as an excellent illustration of my ‘bad dude’ point above, with Red outshooting White 12-0 (!) to no avail. White mustered some semblance of an attack in the second, with the shot count a bit less in Red’s favor (11-6), but it was Brennen Abel finally breaking through at 3:34 to…get this, loyal reader…put White down for the first time all season! Jackson Tomaszewski and Gordon Schmidt provided the helping hands on Abel’s goal, and it was Tomaszewski and Greg Wirth with the assists on young William Teglia’s strike to make it 2-0 Red with 2:34 to play. Remember, if you’re scoring at home, this is the first time all season that White has surrendered more than one goal…and it would lead to their first loss of the season, with Jon Cima (10/10) and Red holding on for the 2-0 win. Perks (29/31) was no less incredible than he has been all season, but even a perfect performance from him would have meant a tie for Siemer & Company. The win is an important one for Red, swinging them into a pack of teams looking to escape the cut line, while the loss does little to dampen the drive, nor the playoff prognosis for White.

If the league has ever seen a starker example of an ‘up and down season’ than Captain Bryan Ossa’s Wing League 2025 ‘FlamingOssas’, I would be very, very surprised. Pink opened their slate with a convincing 7-3 thrashing of Red, followed by a wild 7-6 loss to Orange, followed by a 7-0 boat race win over Brown, followed by a 7-1 laugher loss to White. So…whether dropping seven on a team, or having seven dropped on them, Pink was running a W-L-W-L chain coming into Week Six…a chain featuring perhaps the craziest contrast between links imaginable. The hope for Ossa & Company was that this pendulous pattern would continue, earning them a big bounce back win over Captain Joel Gattey’s 1-1-2 Lime. Lime’s pattern coming in was a bit less 3D, with a 4-2 loss to Blue, a 4-2 win over Green, and too dramatic ties…one late letdown against Flint Blue, and one late come up against White. The end result of these ‘patterns’ for both teams was four points in the standings, and a strong desire to create cutline distance and improve playoff prospects going into the second half of the season. A scoreless first (only the second scoreless period in a game involving Pink all season) saw Pink outshooting (6-2) and out-chancing Lime, but Matt Henderson and Lime would hold the line and surge to life in the second. Vance Morra converted on the powerplay at 5:54 in the second (Joe Malki & Chris Malki), and when Jerry Gonzales added a solo strike at 4:30 and Joe Malki a third tally at 2:25 (Jerry Gonzales & Chris Malki), the fear of another lopsided loss rippled through the Pink bench. Captain Ossa finally answered for his team at 2:14, finishing a very pretty tic-tac-toe rush from Josh Wirt and Sadie Hellstrom, but all potential momentum from that goal was sucked away by a Sean Bathgate dagger with just 0:05 to play in the middle frame (Leah Gonzales & Joel Gattey). Pink continued to push in the third, rallying the shot count back into their favor (9-3), and carving closer with a successful Mark DeGraffenreid breakaway, but that would be all that a heroic Henderson (21/23) would allow. The ‘heroic’ adjective in the previous sentence stems (in part) from the fact that Henderson was badly shaken up with 4:39 to play, with all signs pointing to an early exit with a gnarly shoulder injury. Nope…he stood back up, shook it off, and went on to finish a big 4-2 win for Lime…the kind of toughness that his forthcoming biopic will feature in an inspirational scene, with swelling music and emotional friends and family looking on in the stands. Michael Haine (11/15) was very solid at the other end, fully resolving any crisis of confidence his Pink mates may have had after a tough Week Five loss to White. Haine will have the benefit of a full array of weapons for Pink in Week Seven, with Carl Vankoughnett returning to run alongside Wirt against a suddenly sagging Blue side.

With Captain Goins’ Red moving to a safer place in the standings with their win over White, and Captain Ossa’s Pink sliding closer to the cutline with their loss to Lime, the already weighty trench battle between Captain Shawna Hamon’s Brown and Captain Hima Joshi’s Black took on an additional significance. The winner would keep pace with the four point pack, keep their vanquished opponent below the cutline, and earn a potentially important late season tiebreaker in the process. A win for Brown would also give them two in a row, and serve as some notice that they ‘are back’ after a very slow start to the season in the absence of super star, Kalen Hunter. Coming into Week Six, Hunter had appeared in just two of his team’s four games, but had accounted for three of their four goals. Brown would almost certainly need to find some more ‘secondary scoring’ to survive this season, and…right on cue…Kevin ‘The Deputy’™ Dinino came through, netting his first of the campaign at 9:24 in the first (Captain Hamon). Eric Willard would respond immediately for Black, equalizing just nine seconds later (Steve Pugliese) on what must have been a quick step and shoot off the ensuing faceoff. Brown found more ‘secondary scoring’ with Jim LaGrossa snapping home his second of the season at 3:46 (Hunter & Hamon) to give his team a lead going into the second. Following the trend, it was Weston Oakley’s turn to convert for Brown, finding powerplay paydirt at 6:42 in the second (Hunter and Greg Francisco) to pad Brown’s slim lead. Not only was this another bit of ‘secondary scoring’ for Brown, but it was also Oakley’s first career SDFHL goal! CONGRATULAIONS, WESTON! Evan Melcher brought Black back to within one at 9:05 in the third (Willard), adding his name to the ‘secondary scoring’ trend, which Black would certainly need in the absence Jon Salt. As if to remind all involved that ‘primary scoring’ is also important, Hunter’s fourth of the season (LaGrossa) was also the fourth of the game for his team, and Sean Kelly (16/18) would hold it down from there to seal the 4-2 win for Brown over Black. Chuck Bender (10/14) shouldered the loss for Black in Will Heinl’s absence, with Captain Joshi’s team remaining idle below the cutline through the midway point of the season at 1-4-0. As fortune would have it, her team can immediately redeem themselves and make progress to playoff safety with a win over winless Green this Sunday. Of course, a loss in that game would be the end of the road for Green, but in all likelihood, a loss would spell the end of the second season dream for either team.

In life, there is ‘good drama’, and there is ‘bad drama’. ‘Good drama’ would be…Severance, or Squid Game, or any other movie or show that keeps you locked in on the edge of your seat. ‘Bad drama’ would be SDFHL Wing League 2025 Week Six Orange v Green. Captain Jeremy Copp marshalled his Orange troops into this contest with a 4-0-0 record, TWENTY-THREE goals-for, and three of the top ten scorers in the league (Owen Perks, Aaron Cooney, and Silas Perks) on the court together at any given time. Captain Alan Razoky’s Green came in as perhaps the biggest underdogs in SDFHL history at 0-4-0, having managed just eight goals in those four losses, and with a near-palpable cloud of aimless despair hanging over their ranks. For good measure, Chris Tran would be out of the lineup for Green due to injury, while Orange was fully present and primed to play. In spite of the mismatch ‘on paper’, and by every measure of performance and projection to this point in the season, this game really did have some ‘good drama’ through two periods of play. Owen Perks continued his absolutely scalding scoring pace with his ninth of the season at 9:14 (Silas Perks), but Captain Razoky equalized for Green at 3:55 (Andrew Jacobsen) to send the two teams tied into the second. Orange pumped up the pressure in the second, outshooting Green 12-3, but Chuck Bender was as equal to the task as could be hoped (or more), holding Orange to just two tallies…an Aaron Cooney strike at 8:19 (The Perks Boys™), and a solo snipe from Christopher Fiore at 6:22. So, in spite of the expected heavy tilt of the court in Orange’s favor, and in spite of an 18-5 edge in shots, Green had hung tough with their formidable foes, and the concept of a courageous third period coup was not outside the realm of possibility. Owen Perks’ second of the game at 8:44 (Cooney & Silas Perks) certainly dashed Green’s hope, but the game wore on through the middle point of the third at a still-very-ho-hum 4-1 score. That’s about when the ‘bad drama’ ensued. Cooney’s second of the game with 4:06 to play (Owen Perks), and his hat trick turner at 3:39 (Owen Perks & Shelby Shattuck), broke the game open to a 6-1 Orange rout, drawing accusations from Green (or, at least, one player on Green) of Orange ‘running up the score’. It should be noted that Orange cannot help but ‘run up the score’…they have now averaged SIX goals per game…they are just an offensive juggernaut. At any rate, Fiore’s second of the game to make it 7-1 (Justin Stege) was the final straw for Captain Razoky, as the ‘bad drama’ came to an ugly head, with Green’s leader leading his team off the court in protest of Orange’s potency with 2:34 remaining on the clock. Yes, loyal reader…for the first time in SDFHL history, we saw a team refuse to finish a game, and essentially forfeit…’very bad drama’. As noted, Bender (19/26) was sharp in spite of the seven spot, keeping his outgunned gang in the fray going into the final frame. Mason Holcomb (4/5) was obviously hardly tested, but kept his personal record, and that of Orange perfect at 5-0-0 in the pretty/ugly 7-1 win. Needless to say, the two teams remain on their polar opposite paths with this result, with locking down the top playoff seed the only remaining to-do list item for Orange, and with Green now in must win mode for the remainder of their (miserable) season.

Not all losses hit the same. For Captain Rob Gaudio’s Blue, dropping their first game of the season to a previously unbeaten Brown side…in shutout fashion…in super star Kyle Snyder’s final SDFHL game…that was a tough loss. Still, at 3-1-0, and having brought in the skilled and speedy Jason Remple to replace Snyder, Blue had to like their chances of bouncing back in Week Six against their rival shade, Captain Ryan Karns’ Flint Blue. If you read the headline above, you know already that this was another loss for Blue…and as tough as their first loss of the season was, their second was at least twice as tough. It all started well enough, with Jason Lee putting Blue up 1-0 just thirty seconds into play, and ‘The Other Jason’™ Remple wasting no time before contributing to his new team with the lone assist. Remple then scored his first of the season at 8:39 in the second, finishing a string from Captain Gaudio and Lee to really make himself at home on Blue’s roster, and Captain Gaudio himself made it 3-0 with his second of the season with less than a minute to play before the second period intermission (Tony Thinh & Bao Nguyen). A three goal lead…a late, gut punch second period goal…all of the momentum and swagger going into the third…all signs pointed to Blue getting back in the black in Week Six. Nope. John Boddy started the Flint Blue rally with 8:42 to play (Dan Jurgens & Mark Nagy), but as another three minutes ticked away thereafter, the pushback goal felt like more of a death rattle than a spark plug. When Dan Jurgens cut the lead to one at 5:37 (Nagy), it was at least clear that this one would be a fight to the finish. The clock wound down to the final minutes of play, with Blue still holding a lead and sensing a win when…Luke Wolmer…2:07 (Captain Karns & Jurgens)…now a 3-3 tie! Flint Blue’s Week Two third period scramble to a tie against Lime was impressive, but they went and topped themselves with a three goal rally to tie Blue…and then went and topped themselves again, stealing the win with Boddy finishing the rally he started early in the third with the go-ahead goal at 1:43 (Ruchhoeft). Absolute incredulous devastation on one bench, and ‘pinch me’ jubilation on the other. Nick Meglich (19/22) would hold on to preserve the flat out heist of a 4-3 win for Flint Blue, while Silas Perks (26/30) shouldered a very tough and very rare loss in an even rarer capacity as a sub (for Don Tran). Yes…buried lead alert…Flint Blue pulled off this little coup against ‘The Silencer’™…simply incredible! Blue will need to shake off this brutal loss and find a way to regain their winning ways against a hungry Pink side, while a suddenly-tied-for-second-place Flint Blue will push their house money into the pot against a resurrected Brown.