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Spring Lake Park/Coon Rapids girls' goalie posts seven straight shutouts

By Mike Hendrickson, Star Tribune, 02/11/17, 4:55PM CST

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Miller’s streak spanned from Jan. 14 to Jan. 31 and ended one game short of tying the state record.


Coon Rapids Sami Miller during a practice at the Coon Rapids Ice Center. Star Tribune photo by CARLOS GONZALEZ cgonzalez@startribune.com

Everything clicked for goaltender Sami Miller and the Spring Lake Park/Coon Rapids girls’ hockey team after a 1-0 loss to Roseville on Jan. 7.

The team was below .500, but that’s when the defense, and the goaltending, started to gel. After that loss, Miller amassed a shutout streak of seven games during which her team outscored their opponents 32-0.

Coach Sandy Nelson said Miller and the defense have stepped up their level of play after buying into a system, and it’s done wonders. But it all starts with the goalie.

“Sami’s learned how to get outside of her comfort zone and be awesome in all areas in every game we’ve played,” Nelson said. “But to go that many games without getting scored on is remarkable.”

Miller’s streak spanned from Jan. 14 to Jan. 31. It ended on Feb. 4 in a 7-1 loss to Blake, one game short of tying the state record held by Katie Beaudry of Blaine/Coon Rapids (1995-96).

Miller, a junior, finished with 170 consecutive saves in a span of 10 games, from the time she gave up the goal against Roseville until Blake scored its first goal against her. It includes saves she made in an 11-0 victory against Armstrong/Cooper, in which Miller sat out the last five minutes and thus was not credited with an official shutout.

“After four games, everyone at school was like, ‘When are you going to let one in?’ ’’ said Miller, who attends Spring Lake Park. “I was just putting up zeros because I can. I was doing what I needed to.”

The team’s defensive system isn’t anything out of the ordinary, Nelson said. It’s some man-on-man, but it focuses on not getting beat by opponents and making sure defensemen stick to the job they’ve been told to do.

It took time for the team to come together. Spring Lake Park/Coon Rapids opened with four losses and scored a total of three goals in those games.

Nelson said she knew the team’s offense would be suspect, so to win, the defense and Miller had to play at an elite level.

The shutout streak is a result of that, Miller said.

“We realized we aren’t the most high-scoring team but we can get it done if we keep the other side of the board low,” she said.

The defense’s resurgence helped lighten Miller’s workload. Opponents were averaging around 40 shots a game to start the season but now the number is hovering around 20.

“At the beginning of the season, we were still learning our defense and then there were times where it was like really good, but there was also a lot of breakdowns,” Miller said.

Nelson said Miller’s personality also was a big factor in her shutout streak. Miller skates year-round and on Sundays works on goaltending, but is also known as the most fun player on the team.

Hannah Schultz, a senior defenseman, said she’s known Miller her whole life because the two are neighbors.

“She’s one of the hardest working girls on our team,” Schultz said. “She’s always doing the most, always willing to put the work in to get the reward.”

Spring Lake Park/Coon Rapids, with a regular season record 15-9-1, opened the Class 2A, Section 5 playoffs against Rogers on Saturday.

The loss to Blake, the state’s top-ranked Class 1A team, resulted from little mistakes adding up. Nothing about Miller’s performance worried Nelson that day. She knows her lighthearted goalie can shrug off a loss like that.

“She doesn’t take herself too seriously,” Nelson said. “She’s learned over the last two years to forget about a goal and play the next shot and be steady.”

Mike Hendrickson is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.

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