Spiders double up Marauders

Dec. 21, 2024

The Spiders pre-holiday effort resulted in a 6–3 victory, and a few injuries.

The largest crowd (at least 7!) of the 2024–25 season came out to the early game Saturday at Richfield, for Spiders (1–3–1–1; 14th place) vs. Marauders (3–2; 9th place).

The game started out a bit shaky, with a questionable call on Andres for getting run over while passing the puck (body check), which led to an immediate PPG, followed by Litton getting ragdolled while winning a puck chase, and that was followed by Andres reinjuring his “upper-body” injury in a friendly-fire collision.

Fortunately the rest of the Spiders stepped up and built a quick two-goal cushion to put the Marauders on their heels — Berman from Mettee, Pappone from Berman and Benson, and Pappone again, from Vandenberghe and Litton.

On his first shift back on the ice, Andres was inexplicably called for a trip, while Pappone, then Litton, were explicably called for their bin sits by ref (and former Gold Spiders goalie) Jim Hanngi.

By the end of the second, the Spiders had built a dominating lead, with Ryan Johnson from Andres, then Olk (battling his own “lower-body” injury) from Kato.

A defensive brain freeze led to the Marauders getting one back, but quickly answered by Olk pitching one from Schuster’s Office (from Litton and Berman).

A clinical 3-minute forecheck kept the puck bottled in the offensive zone taking the chance of any further comeback off the table. Another sloppy backcheck play gave the Marauders the last marker, but with 30 seconds to go, the game was already in hand.

With Tejeda facing a tied-for-season-high 35 shots (also 35 vs. Ice Cobras), half of which seemed to come from one goalmouth scramble, he earned the Spiders their second W of the season. The key was the juicy goalie mask apparently.

Final score: 6–3 Good Guys

The second win of the season inches the Spiders up to a (technical) tie for 10th place in the outsized C3 tier (2–3–1–1), just behind the Marauders (3–3–0–0), though they have a game in hand and three regulation wins. But no need to consider tiebreakers yet. The Spiders will celebrate the holiday season being out of the cellar.

While no playoff cutoff has been set for the 19-team field, the Spiders have to at least be considered on Jim Mora’s Xmas list, just below .500 at .429.

Lifetime against the Marauders, which dates all the way back to the 2014–15 season, but only four matchups since then until this season, tilts toward the Spiders 3–2.

Next up, Xmas stockings instead of Sabres socks. And the Spiders return to the ice in a pre-new year game against the ED Nords (1-4-1-0; tied 16th place; .250).

The Spiders and Nords have a long and tilted (in the Nords’ favor — other than Billy’s shutout game puck game) history, with a 1–10–2 record dating back to the 2015–16 season. The last matchup in March, a 5–2 defeat.

Puck drop next Saturday, 9:10 p.m., at Charlie Brown’s Barn.