Tigers Win Second Straight, But…

By Pat Rupp

The Tigers posted their second consecutive win of the season Tuesday night, downing Prior Lake 4-1 at Dakotah Arena.

A victory is always preferable to the other two possible outcomes, but Farmington coach Jon Holmes was not exactly doing celebratory cartwheels over his team’s play in the South Suburban Conference contest.

“The first period of this game we named “Thanksgiving” Holmes said. We were certainly thankful to be playing again, but we really it was due to how we looked.  We played like it had been a week since our last game with a huge meal and couple days off in between... We seemed to use it as a warm-up.”

The Lakers took a 1-0 lead midway through the first period before Jayden Seifert (from Sam Moehle) got the visitors on track with a power play score to send the teams to the first break tied at 1-1.

Claire Enright netted her third and fourth goals of the young season early in the second period to give the Tigers a two-goal cushion headed into the final frame. Madison Kadrlik assisted on the first goal on the power play. Enright’s second score came with the Tigers playing shorthanded.

Brenna Fuhrman (from Seifert) scored on the power play at 3:22 of the final period to round out the night’s scoring.

“The second and third periods we started to generate a lot of scoring opportunities,” Holmes said. “We had six full out breakaways, of which we only converted one and we had a multitude of point blank shots that missed the net or were sluggishly stuffed right into the netminder’s gut. 

“We did get better with every shift which was promising and despite not converting on a high percentage of chances, we did manage to get another conference win to keep ourselves moving forward.”

Holmes said that even though the offense had trouble finishing, perhaps the night’s biggest problem was allowing the Lakers too many good looks at the net.

“To control the puck and play for over 80 percent of the game but still give up as many shots as we did is something we will certainly address this week in practice,” he said.

The Prior Lake stat person had Farmington with a 33-25 bulge on shots on net but Holmes offered his managers had a much more lopsided total tilting toward the Tigers.  Farmington goaltender Ryleigh Furlong finished the night with 25 saves

The locals will take a 2-3 mark (2-2 in the South Suburban) into Saturday afternoon’s battle with traditional rival Lakeville North (2-6 and 2-3) at Schmitz-Maki Arena. Farmington defeated North in last year’s Section 1AA championship game. Opening faceoff is set for 3:00 pm.