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SUNDAYS #7 vs. ENTROPY:

(vol. 7S, no. 7; newsletter by h.s.)
The second of our home-at-home vs. Entropy (we lost 4-1 last week) had a few better omens: first, we were back in "Pirate Black" and second, we had Jimmy Ferraro back in the lineup for the first time in nearly two seasons. From the first face-off, we completely dominated the Entropy zone (amazing hustle by Dan DiPierro and Wildman on the "Downey side" of the ice!), but John Arena's goaltending kept the game scoreless throughout the 1st.

Finally, in the 2nd our efforts paid off: Roger found Jimmy with a pass and Jimmy put it in for 1-0 lead. The Entropy tried opening-up the game a bit after that, but Roger, Russ and Dan Pomphrey were not letting anyone near me (thanks, guys!). With just about :30 remaining in the period, a huge crowd in front of the Entropy crease saw Ralz -- who had strong legs all night -- bang in his second of the season for the 2-0 Pirate lead (assist to Wildman). That late goal was huge for us and you could feel the Entropy (with their shortened 2-man bench) deflate.

During the 3rd the Entropy were finally able to consistently gain our zone, but again we managed to hold them off -- mostly by taking out the guys in front and/or by deflecting passes in front. Scooby was doing a great job of falling back when our "D" would press and LeMatty was refusing access at center ice to any forwards (as one Pirate emailed he was "taking bodies out all over the place"). During one sequence, Ralz got a nice pass to Dan Pomphrey at the point for a rocket, but the puck was stopped and then bounced all the way back to Jimmy (who was just coming on for his shift) who wound-up for a slapshot score -- his second of the game. We killed-off two powerplays during the 3rd (tripping penalties to both Dans -- #44 and #20), including one late in the period and succeeded in frustrating a team that had handled us the previous week.