Puntapalooza has begun! Rhino's Rage, Flashover, and White Walkers all draw cup opponents deserving of attention, and just drop the away game. With the Sofuegg game, that means 4 games do not warrant comment except to notice that Visionaries extend their record-making winning streak.
One of the most exciting games of the week was Deronimo @ Hipsterbears. This was Deronimo's second away game in a row. The home team was up 5 to begin the fourth, but with an incredible defensive performance, Deronimo's expanded roster holds Hipsterbears to 4 points in the first 7 minutes of the fourth quarter. Takes the lead and wins it going away in double digits. Deronimo survives a terrible roll of the dice, putting up 112 pp100 from the PG position but with the starter PG shooting only 8-24. Not too much separates the teams in the stat sheet, but Deronimo scored just a bit more efficiently.
The other exciting game was The Orchestra @ HPH. This too came down to a late punch -- in fact even later than the other game. With 7 minutes to go the Orchestra was up 9 points, 88-79. Just a couple more buckets and the away win could have been sealed. But HPH mounted a really impressive comeback. They were in our same d.II conference a couple seasons ago, and we lost to them in the conference finals when both teams would have won the actual finals. So, when I see the names of Mattox and K Rod, I still get a touch of PTSD. With that said, home normal vs. tie from a strong team, and no tactical mismatch should be a nearly impossible mountain to climb. The Orchestra probably won't kick themselves too much, as they were lucky to be in that position to begin with.
Beware of Dogs will kick themselves for their ill-advised away normal. As a manager, all I needed to know to realize that they had little chance to pull this off was that they had normaled Tuesday's game, still had an injured guy, and did not have great game shape. It didn't matter that our SF Villagran went out after fourteen excellent minutes. The game was never close, and unfortunately BoD suffered a late injury to their top salaried player when the game was already out of reach. We were talking about injuries, and it certainly feel like this season they are rearing their ugly head. (And at the moment BoD has both of the top 2 highest salary injuries in the association.)
Last edited by Coco at 10/5/2024 10:24:40 PM