Healthy Tigers Pummel JM in Section Opener

By Pat Rupp

For the first time all season Farmington hit the ice with a healthy lineup and that didn’t bode well for Rochester John Marshall as the Tigers rolled to an 11-0 win over the Rockets in a Section 1AA quarterfinal final game played Wednesday night at Schmitz-Maki Arena.

Eight different Tigers found the net and 17 Farmington players registered at least one point in a contest that saw the winners outshoot their guests by an incredible 65-5 count (not a misprint).

“We came out and went hard the entire game,” Farmington coach Jon Holmes said. “We won the races we needed to win and when the puck did pop out of the zone, we hustled back to get into position. It was very nice to see us at full strength.”

Oddly, the lopsided post-season opener was scoreless for almost 11 minutes of the opening period before Carly Lancaster (from Brenna Fuhrman), Claire Enright (from Jayden Seifert) and Samantha Moehle (from Enright and Jenna Gerold) each scored in a span of 2:02 to make it a three-goal game heading to the second frame.

Farmington’s dominance continued in the second as the Tigers held the Rockets without a shot on goal while racking up two scores of their own.

Gerold (from Enright) and Bailey Kelley (unassisted) netted the goals for Farmington and helped set up an explosive final period for the Tiger offense.

In the final 17 minutes, Farmington rang up six scores, two by Gerold, and one apiece by Moehle, Ava Johnson, Grace Auge and Kiersten Wood. Kelley, Moehle, Cassie Knutson, Izzy Zwart and Makenna Kadrlik all recorded assists.

Farmington goaltender Ryleigh Furlong must have felt as lonely as the Maytag repairmen as the puck stayed in the opposite end of the rink most of the night. Furlong finished with five saves in posting her fourth shutout of the 2018-19 season.

John Marshall’s netminder, Anysima Helmer, had a much different kind of outing as the Tigers sent 65 shots her way. Holmes praised Helmer’s effort after the game.

“She played absolutely phenomenally,” he said. “She was calm and in control even though we peppered her. It was probably a good thing she did play so well as it kept the intensity level high for us.”

Gerold with a hat trick and an assist, Kelley with a goal and an assist and Lancaster with a goal have been out with injuries and all appeared ready to make big contributions to what Holmes hopes is a big post-season run.

“Adding Jenna (Gerold) makes us a much more potent offensive threat and having both her and Bailey (Kelley) back certainly tightens us up even more defensively. They are not only seniors with experience under their belt, but they both are willing to block shots and get into the dirty duties. Having Carly (Lancaster) come back is also a huge boost as she brings so much speed and offense with her solid shot.”

Wednesday’s win vaulted Farmington into Saturday’s semifinals back at Schmitz-Maki where the top top-seeded Tigers play host to fifth-seed Lakeville South. The two teams met twice during the regular season with Farmington winning both  contests, 5-2 and 3-0.