Bullfrogs Find Winning Combination

Credit Bullfrog management with making what appears to be the necessary moves to make another Murphy Cup run when the Roller Hockey International playoffs begin next week.

Those changes in the last two weeks helped the Bullfrogs win their fifth consecutive game, 9-6, over San Jose Wednesday night before an announced crowd of 8,077 at the Pond.

The victory pulled the Bullfrogs (13-9-0) within a point of the second-place Blades, who play at fourth-place St. Louis today, and within two points of front-running San Jose (13-7-2).

All four teams will take part in the Western Conference playoffs, but it’s still too early to determine matchups. The battle is for home-court advantage, which, in this year’s reduced home-and-home series that could be decided by minigames, makes playing at home crucial.

“This summer every game has been so competitive,” said San Jose Coach Guy Gadowski. “It has been very exciting to watch. But I don’t want to play any of them. We’re all good teams.”

Wednesday night, Gadowski got his first good look at the new-look Bullfrogs. Coach Brad McCaughey suited up only six players who began the season with the Bullfrogs. He instead relied on his new combinations of three distinct, mostly Canadian lines to do most of the work.

Forward Brent Thurston, acquired from the Canadian National Inline team, played in his first RHI game in a year, and had a goal and two assists. Sean Whyte, who joined the team two weeks ago, had two goals and an assist and Hugo Belanger, appearing in his third game with the Bullfrogs, had three assists.

“They brought us here to win and it doesn’t matter who scores or who takes the penalty,” Belanger said. “We took a quarter and a half off tonight and we still won.”

San Jose rallied from a 3-1 second-quarter deficit to take a 5-3 third-quarter lead.

Tom Menicci cut the lead in half and then a goal from Todd Wetzel tied the score with 3:39 left.

Thurston’s goal with 41 seconds left in the third quarter gave the Bullfrogs a 6-5 lead that they would not relinquish. Then Whyte opened the fourth quarter with a goal for a 7-5 lead.

Not to slight some of the remaining crew, center Victor Gervais, who has become the team’s leading scorer despite missing the first five games of the season, had two goals and three assists.

Bullfrog defender Darren Perkins, who served as an assistant coach while missing 11 games because of an injury, returned and managed two assists.

“We’re still learning to play together,” Perkins said.