The 2-1 beat goes on

by Pat Rupp

Forgive Tiger coach Jon Holmes for his head-scratching after Tuesday night’s 2-1 South Suburban Conference overtime win over Rosemount at the Rosemount Community Center.

The one-goal squeaker marked the fourth time in 10 starts Farmington has skated away with a 2-1 victory. Three of its four wins in conference play have been by identical 2-1 margins.

In two other contests, both conference losses, empty net goals by the opposition in the game’s final minute made the final score 3-1 (instead of 2-1). Call it a 2-1 rut.

“I feel like a broken record,” Holmes said. “We dominated the entire game. We outshot and we outplayed them. We had chance after chance after chance after chance, and again no twine. Cross bars, posts, butt ends of stick saves, skate blade saves, break away misses, point blank back door misses…I am at a loss.”

Note should be taken that despite the low offensive production the Tigers (5-5 overall) have now won four of five games and stand in the middle of the pack in the South Suburban standings.

The Irish drew first blood in Tuesday’s cliff-hanger with Emma Shoemaker scoring on an assist from Skylar Smith at the 5:32 mark of the opening period. Shoemaker’s goal stood up through the first break despite the Tigers outshooting their guests by a lopsided 19-6.

Ellie Moser capped off an evenly played second period with her eighth goal of the season at 16:56 to send the teams to the second intermission tied at one.

After a scoreless third period and 6:56 of overtime Emily Rubins finally sent the Farmington crowd home happy with her first score of the season. Marissa Agerter recorded an assist on the game-winner.

The defense put in another stellar effort and netminder Abby Bollig continued her stingy play, stopping 25 of 26 shots to post her fifth win of the year. Bollig has surrendered just 16 goals all season and owns a miniscule 1.57 goals against average and a save percentage of .932.

Holmes said he and his staff continue to look for the right formula to kick the offensive production up a notch or two.

“We are continuing to move lines around to try and find a ‘jive’,” Holmes said. “We are working to put ourselves in high percentage situations (which we definitely are) to ensure that we will continue getting the chances we have been with the expectation that the pucks are going to find twine soon.”

The Tigers have one more chance to light up the scoreboard before Christmas when they travel to Owatonna Thursday night for a non-conference contest with the Huskies. Next week they host their annual Louis Schmitz Holiday Classic at Schmitz-Maki Arena.