Nothing Doing at Burnsville

by Pat Rupp

For the second time this season, Farmington (14-10) came up empty in a match-up with South Suburban Conference rival Burnsville, this time in a 2-0 shutout loss to the Blaze Tuesday night at the Burnsville Ice Center.

Earlier this season, Burnsville prevailed 3-0 at Schmitz-Maki Arena. The shutout losses are the only two on the Tigers’ ledger this winter.

The Blaze made a statement in the opening period, dominating play while outshooting its guests 11-3, but led only 1-0 at the first break thanks to a goal by Zoe Chadwick.

After a scoreless second period, Burnsville’s Maddie Mazanec lit the lamp at 4:43 of the third period to score what would be the game’s final goal.

Farmington coach Jon Holmes said his team played what he termed “solid hockey” after the first period but could not overcome a problem that has plagued the girls all season, namely playing shorthanded.

“The issue was penalties and the timing of them,” he said. “We cannot expect to win with 22 minutes in penalties. I am not even sure if that has ever been done. We had to pull our goalie a couple times just to try and play 5-on-5 and that usually resulted in another penalty

“The inconsistency lies in the mindset. We are very good at saying all the things we need to say and generating all the game plans we can generate, but we just haven’t consistently been implementing those things for complete games.”

Holmes said, however, all was not lost on the trip to Burnsville.

 “One positive takeaway from this game was that we were stellar on the penalty kill again,” Holmes said. “We have a great mindset when it comes to killing penalties that I would love to carbon copy and bring to our 5-on-5 game. 

“Another positive is that we reacted well to what was not working in the first period and made solid on-ice adaptations to give us more chances.

The loss, Farmington’s second in a row, dropped the locals to 10-7 in South Suburban play and in a four-way tie with Eastview, Shakopee and Burnsville with one league game remaining, Saturday at Rosemount.

Next week the Tigers enter Section 1AA play where they hope to defend their 2019 championship and earn a return trip to the Class AA state tournament. Holmes said a lot of work needs to be done between now and then.

“A friend of mine watched the game and said it looked like we were waiting for someone to step up and do something,” he said. “I would agree that is what we have been doing the last two games. We have lacked the drive to finish. We have to get that turned around.”