Tonight, the Squirrels face JEMM in a non-conference game on Sheet 1 at 6 p.m. at the Ice Rink at Coal Street Park in Wilkes-Barre. At 3 wins, 3 losses and a tie, the Squirrels are just two points out of first place in the Buckwheat Division, and fourth overall in the Fell Conference.

ACC is expected to rule tonight on playoff eligibility, but many indications are that four teams per conference will make the post-season tournament. This puts the Squirrels in the No. 4 seed, but the hold on that position is strained, at best.

In order to get a little more secure about Playoffs aspirations, the Squirrels will need a win tonight and to do so will need to knock off the rust. It’s been three weeks since the team last took the ice. During that draw, the Squirrels fell to the league’s best team, C&Ds, 13-4.

After taking a 1-0 lead, the Squirrels couldn’t manage to get shots in the house with any regularity and in three ends, found themselves down 9-1. After winning three ends of their own, the Squirrels were actually poised to pull off an unthinkable comeback, but couldn’t establish any effective guards to block multiple point opportunities.

“We were down by a lot … too much,” Skip Joshua Sophy said. “As a team we had to take some risks and that had more than anything to do with the lopsided score. After we were down 9-1, I thought our play really improved, and our teamwork is getting back to where it was two months ago.”

New Lead Chris Martinelli will be in his third game with the Squirrels tonight and was not around the last time tonight’s opponents met in the preseason. Just before the regular season began, the Squirrels took down JEMM 9-2, the squad’s first-ever win.

Both teams have been plagued by inconsistency all year, but each has the possibility of making an expanded post-season. JEMM is currently fifth in the Smith Conference.

Following a gut-checking two-game losing streak, the Blind Squirrels erased those bad memories and took care of Cracked Ice last week, 7-3. The win keeps the Squirrels atop the Buckwheat Division standings of Anthracite Curling Club’s 2010 Summer League.

Only three games remain on the regular season schedule, and since the beginning, the Squirrels have set the winning pace in the division. All along the way however, they’ve had company.

Also last week, Stone Cold (who forced a tie with the Squirrels earlier this year) defeated the previously unbeaten C&Ds squad to build a similar 3-2-1 record as the Squirrels. The Squirrels face C&Ds this week at 8 p.m. on Sheet 2 in Wilkes-Barre.

To get back to winning ways, the Squirrels jumped on their opponent early, and scored often. This is exactly what was not happening during the losing streak. In each of those games, the Squirrels got behind 4-0 in each game. Last week, it was the complete opposite.

“We played on Sheet 1 last week and we really struggled,” Skip Joshua Sophy said. “We had a plan, and we all executed our shots. We were turning in on a lot of shots. That allowed us to turn this mutha out.”

The Squirrels hung 2s on the scoreboard in the 1st and 2nd ends and Cracked Ice responded with a point in the 3rd. In that third, the Squirrels were sitting on three points, but Cracked Ice Skip Ted Karampilas was able to nestle a shot in the house for the score. He foiled scoring plans in the 5th and 7th ends, too.

In each end, the Squirrels had numerous rocks in the house, including a 5′er in the 6th end. They could only manage one point in that end.

The Blind Squirrels dropped consecutive draws for the first time since the exhibition season last week in a 5-2 loss to WINOs. For the opponent, it was a third-straight win and a new lease on the season.

For the Squirrels, the loss was combined with two favorable results from division foes and team is miraculously still in first place of the Buckwheat Division.

Like countless weeks prior, the Squirrels started slowly and this week, could never fully recover. After a scoreless first end, the inability to manage a tricky ice on Sheet 1 resulted in a 3-0 deficit after two ends.

In the team’s first loss of the season the previous week, the Squirrels got behind Schoolhouse Rocks! 4-0 after the first end. Though they were able to eventually score enough to make an ill-fated comeback in that game, the offense against WINOs just wasn’t there.

The Squirrels were unable to score again in 3rd end, and found themselves down 4-0 for the second week in a row. Finally, the shooters were able to figure out what deliveries would be most successful, but they couldn’t manage any multiple-point rounds.

Getting as close as 4-2 after five ends, the Squirrels were sitting on at least two points in the 6th when WINOs Skip Lyle Kerrick stuck his first shot right on the button. Squirrels Skip Joshua Sophy was only able to bump Kerrick’s stone a few inches from that button as his last rock peeled out of the house.

“We can’t get too down after this loss. We got some help around the league tonight and we’re still in a good spot to make the playoffs. We’re going through some changes right now, and still have four more games to get this right,” Sophy said.

Montone (V) counts the damage in the 1st end of the June 15 draw vs. Schoolhouse Rocks! The Squirrels lost for the first time this season, 8-4.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — By the end of the night, the Blind Squirrels simply couldn’t measure-up against the competition.

Schoolhouse Rocks! earned its first victory of the season in 2010 Summer League play by defeating Schuylkill Blind Squirrels, 8-4, on June 15. This marks the first loss of the season for the Squirrels.

SR! used the final two ends to avenge a three-end, four-point Squirrels comeback earlier in the match, scoring four of their own to pull ahead.

Poor first-end shooting doomed the Squirrels (2-1-1) early this night. Skip Joshua Sophy wasn’t able to maneuver any rocks into the house as he struggled with his shots all night. His failures in the first end led to four SR! (1-4) points and an early deficit. This 4-0 hole was the largest deficit the Squirrels have faced since its first exhibition draw two months ago.

Like each deficit the team has faced in league play however, the team was equal to the task and over the next three ends, proceeded to gnaw at that big lead. Lead Anne Friedman established a keen Squirrels strategy and was able to clog the guard zone, along with Second Josh Stoffregen and Vice Kimm Montone. Sophy was able to keep SR! rocks away from the shot rocks in those ends and by the 5th end, the team had a chance to make that comeback complete and send another opponent packing.

In the 5th, the Squirrels weren’t without chances to make a full-circle comeback with four scoring rocks. They however, were left unprotected and grouped together in the house and were sitting targets for SR! shooters. One-by-one, and sometimes two-by-two, the Squirrels advantage quickly became another big-scoring end for SR!

In the 6th end, a last chance for the Squirrels, the team lost its first-ever official measurement. While eyeballs can usually determine even the slightest difference in distance from the button, two rocks in the 6th were so close, the club’s official PVC pressure-measuring device was employed. The Squirrels missed salvaging a point in the end by literally fractions of a millimeter.

The teams curl at 8 p.m. Tuesday on Sheet 3 (near the penalty boxes and benches) at Coal Street Park in Wilkes-Barre.

Though Schoolhouse Rocks! remains winless on the season, they haven’t been without chances for victories. At least two losses have been decided in the final end. The team lost its last match on June 1 to Goody’s, 11-3.

“The standings and records are really deceiving,” Squirrels Skip Joshua Sophy said this week in preparation for the draw. “We learned two weeks ago that previous scores, place in the standings and all the intangibles are too premature to judge. We really just have to play our game and make our shots to threaten to score in each end.”

Schoolhouse Rocks! will be representing Anthracite Curling Club this weekend in Woodstock, Vt., at the GNCC Arena Club Championships. The team is Skipped by Allison Piatt, the Instructor in charge of three of the Squirrels during the club’s Learn-To-Curl classes months ago.

On June 1, the Squirrels turned aside Boss Hog-Line, 6-3, to take a full game lead over the rest of the Buckwheat Division. Here are the draw previews from the Club Web blog of the other teams in our division:

MLC (1-2) vs. Cracked Ice (1-1), Sheet 2, 6 p.m.

MLC has been off for three weeks coming into this draw, and will need a win to keep itself in a four-team race in the Buckwheat Division. In its last draw, MLC lost a close match, 6-5, to Fifteen.
Cracked Ice is coming off its first win of the season two weeks ago when it dropped WINOs, 7-3, in a Chestnut Division matchup. A win this week gets the team within a game of first place.

Stone Cold (1-1-1) vs. WINOs (0-2), Sheet 3, 6 p.m.

Stone Cold can assert itself near the top of the cramped Buckwheat Division standings with a win this week. The team hasn’t been on the ice in three weeks, when it defeated Goody’s, 6-3, in a six-end affair.
WINOs is looking for its first win of the season, and it couldn’t come at a better time. The top two teams in its Chestnut Division are idle. Two weeks ago, the team lost, 7-3, to Cracked Ice.

RAMROD (1-1-1) vs. Team IX (0-3), Sheet 2, 8 p.m.

RAMROD is in a similar situation to Stone Cold, and has an identical record. A win this week would go miles to cementing the team in a summer-long divisional race with the Squirrels, Stone Cold and MLC.
RAMROD also has not taken the ice in three weeks due to a Bye on June 1. In its last match, it forced a tie with Whippersnappers.
Team IX is in need of its first win of the season and can take advantage of an idle division leader. A win this week could turn the season on its heels.

The Blind Squirrels allowed Boss Hog-Line its second point in the 2nd end, but never looked back after that en route to a 6-3 win Tuesday night in Anthracite Curling Club 2010 Summer League action. The win puts the Squirrels (2-0-1) atop the Buckwheat Division going into next week’s League sabbatical.

In that 2nd end, Boss Hog-Line (1-1) was sitting on three points as the Skips stepped on the hack with their final two shots. Squirrels Skip Joshua Sophy was able tuck in his hammer shot between two of those scoring rocks, shaving two points off the damage. At the end of the 2nd, the Squirrels trailed 2-0 but the team sensed a turning point in the draw.

The Squirrels have been slow starters in each of their three draws but have responded in each. Lead Anne Friedman was first to respond in the 3rd end, dropping a well-placed guard and a scoring rock in the house on her two shots. Deft shots from Second Josh Stoffregen and Vice Kimm Montone protected that rock with their shots and Sophy was able to knock in another scoring rock with the hammer and the Squirrels had erased the deficit in just one end.

(From left) Sophy, Montone and Friedman sweep in a Stoffregen shot during Tuesday's draw with Boss Hog-Line. The Squirrels won, 6-3. John Quincy Photo

Those well-placed guards and scoring rocks continued to emanate from the Squirrels’ hack in the 4th, 5th and 6th ends as well. Without the hammer, the Squirrels rattled off four more consecutive points (including two more in the 4th end) to go up 6-2. In the 7th, once the team was able to do the math and realized only the unthinkable could only force a tie, Sophy merely had to waste rocks and avoid any errors.

“After we shook off our rust and I made that shot in the 2nd, my job got a lot easier. Most of my shots were conservative. All I had to do was not screw-up,” Sophy said after the draw. “The rest of the team was incredible at placing their shots and getting us points. The ice was really fast tonight and I didn’t want any nutty bounces or wicked curls erasing all their hard work.”

The fast ice sent many BHL shots through the house and out the back door. Meanwhile, the Squirrels used soft shots and three-person sweeping efforts much of the night to guide the rocks where they needed to be.

“Everyone’s really getting an idea early in the draws of what the ice is doing. It’s very fickle – sticky early and a racetrack by 9:30,” Sophy said. “Our team effort was fantastic tonight. This was a real challenge, and Boss Hog was a tough opponent. We’ve all already experienced those nights when it seems like every shot is going through the house. We were fortunate tonight. They have a good strategy on the ice.”

The Squirrels haven’t been on the ice at Coal Street Park in Wilkes-Barre for more than 10 days when they did all they could to force a tie against Stone Cold, 4-4. In its first and only draw, Boss Hog-Line defeated Team XVI, 12-0.

A win for the Squirrels tonight would separate them from the rest of the Buckwheat Division. Last week, while the team was burrowed away at home, its division rivals were busy in inter-conference matchups. MLC lost, Stone Cold won, and Team RAMROD forced a tie. That all ended in a three-way tie for first, and MLC just a tie behind the pack.

This week has the Squirrels in action and the rest of the division idle. A win from the Squirrels sets the team apart from the rest of the division by at least a game one-third of the way through the season.

Scouting the Opponent: Because Boss Hog-Line has only played one game, it’s tough to get a read on the team. Certainly its 12-0 win in that only draw is enough to get anyone’s attention, but the league has already seen some bipolar scoring from week-to-week. In that game, BHL defeated Team XVI, which avenged that loss last week in an 8-3 win over Schoolhouse Rocks! Goody’s lost by just one point last week after getting dropped 11-1 by Whippersnappers a week before that. Whippersnappers followed its 11-1 win over Goody’s with a tie against Team RAMROD.

Keys to the Draw: The Squirrels need to maintain composure, and should expect BHL to make good shots throughout the draw. In its last match, the Squirrels erased a three-point deficit and earned a tie. If the team can avoid sloppy play, and each team member makes at least one good shot per end, the Squirrels will avoid giving BHL any big scoring opportunities.

Also during that draw, the Squirrels accomplished their goal of keeping rocks in play, but left too many in the guard zone, not the house. If the team can extend those shots just a few feet, those big scoring opportunities will be theirs.

Wins by two teams – RAMROD and MLC – would put each in first place, and a win by Team Flyte would draw that team even with the Squirrels, though we’d hold a game in-hand (have one more to play than the others) on each. Each of those other teams faces an non-conference opponent and that means by the end of the night, the Squirrels could still be in first place.

Here is the take from the League blog on this week’s action:  http://anthracitecurling.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/week-3-features-divisions-lead-up-for-grabs/

The Squirrels scored two points in the 5th end and conservatively secured the draw with another point in the 6th to complete a three-point comeback. As the clock struck 10 p.m. on the wall of the Ice Rink at Coal Street Complex, the tie along with Team RAMROD’s win over another Buckwheat Division rival, MLC, meant the Squirrels sit alone in first place today. Division winners advance to the League playoffs in August. The Squirrels are off next Thursday (May 27) and return to the ice on June 1 before the league takes a two-week hiatus.

After taking a 1-0 lead into the 2nd end, the Squirrels found everything but the house for three ends, rarely wasting a rock, but unable to find the right speed or curl to make more accurate shots. In the 3rd end, the Squirrels looked as though they had at least three points, but a clever shot from the opposing Vice Skip knocked two Squirrels’ rocks from the house and they had and held shot-rock.

The Squirrels conceded two more points in the 4th end. It was suddenly a 4-1 deficit and little time remained. Arguably the team’s best player all night, Lead Anne Friedman got the 5th end started with two nice shots, and Second Josh Stoffregen shook off earlier rust and began making life difficult for Team Flyte shooters. By the end, the Squirrels earned two in the end, and then erased the hammer’s impact when Skip John Flyte missed his shot at the Squirrels well-hidden shot-rock in the 6th.

Sophy and Montone sweep during an exhibition match loss to MLC a few weeks ago.

The Blind Squirrels take the ice in Wilkes-Barre tonight at 8 with its aim on staying in first place of Anthracite Curling Club’s Buckwheat Division. The team faces a squad Skipped by John Flyte (who appeared on the WNEP story about the club two months ago).

Last week’s 9-3 victory over division foe Team RAMROD combined with the prospect of a Bye week on May 27 has the

team hungry for a win tonight. Though it’s early, the Squirrels want to avoid sitting on a loss for at least two weeks.

“No one ever wants to head into the Bye week with a loss,” Skip Joshua Sophy said earlier this week. “It’s important for us to avoid the times during the draw when we seem to lose our focus. If we can do that, and do the things we do correctly, it’s up to us.”

Team Flyte is looking for its first win of the season, after falling 6-2 last week to MLC, another Buckwheat Division foe. Tonight’s draws should give an early indication of the division strengths before each team ventures out to play the rest of the league. Team RAMROD will look to avenge its loss to the Squirrels last week when it faces MLC tonight, also at 8.