Tigers Win One, Tie One

By Pat Rupp

Farmington inched back over the .500 mark last week with a win and a tie versus South Suburban Conference competition.

Thursday the Tigers let a two-goal lead slip away in a 2-2 overtime draw with Apple Valley. Two days later they were back on their game in a 5-2 victory at Lakeville South. Through six early games Farmington sits a 3-2-1, all in conference play.

Thursday at Schmitz-Maki Arena, leading scorer Claire Enright notched a goal in each of the first two periods before the Eagles rallied for a pair of scores in the third to force what would become a scoreless eight-minute overtime session. Enright’s first goal was unassisted; Brenna Fuhrman and Jayden assisted on the second.

“We definitely came away from this one disappointed,” Farmington coach Jon Holmes said.  “We played a pretty solid two periods defensively and only allowed shots from the outside and really limiting their chances. 

“Going into the third period we knew we just needed another solid period defensively to wrap things up, but we got ourselves caught a little out of position which resulted in getting some penalties…We let in two goals from the point and had many opportunities to get another of our own to go back ahead but just couldn’t find that twine. 

“We did have some very big lessons to take away from the game, however. In watching film the next day we were able to see many of the small things such as minor positional issues as well as problems with our angles of attack and energy level.”

Farmington outshot the Eagles 32-27 in the game, including a 9-4 advantage in the overtime period. Tiger netminder Ryleigh Furlong finished with 25 saves.

The day following the tie with Valley the team had a visit from Dr. Cindra Kamphoff who has been working with the team on the mental aspects of the game for the past three seasons.

“Each and every time she comes we get energized,” Holmes said. “She gives strategies to keep our focus and get the most out of our abilities.”

The session seemed to pay dividends in Saturday’s road win at South.

“The girls came out with a much clearer vision of what they wanted to accomplish and how they wanted to accomplish it,” Holmes said.  We certainly still had our moments where we lapsed a bit, but our bounce back was much better and our energy levels were more in sync with each other.”

Most of the scoring in Saturday’s tilt took place in the opening period as the Tigers bolted to a 4-1 lead. Carly Lancaster netted two of the scores with Enright and Samantha Moehle also getting in on the goal-fest. 

South tallied the only goal of the second period and Farmington’s Izzy Zwart closed out the night’s scoring with a final period goal on an assist from Zwart.

Furlong racked up 14 saves and earned some words of praise from her coach.

“She is playing better each game and getting more and more comfortable,” Holmes said. “She’s been making some real nice saves.”

Holmes said the slow pace of the game was affected by the constant march to the penalty box. Farmington piled up eight penalties to South's two in the contest.

“There were some questionable calls,” he said. “In girls hockey there is nothing more frustrating than checking penalties on the boards and the consistency in making those calls. It makes the aggressive nature of the game go to the wayside and puts doubt and question into the players’ heads. So needless to say we had way too many penalties, but the positive takeaway is that we were much more mentally ready for South than we were against Apple Valley”

This week the Tigers take on two of the better teams in the South Suburban. Thursday the girls take their unbeaten 3-0 road record to Shakopee and Saturday they entertain league leader Eagan where they will seek their first home ice win. Farmington is 0-2-1 this season at Schmitz-Maki.