Girls Hockey: Penalties kill in season opener

Madison Bowe makes one of her 15 second period saves (photo by Jim Lindquist)

Farmington scored three times in the final seven minutes but it wasn't enough in a 5-3 non-conference loss to Hastings Tuesday night in a penalty-filled season opener at Schmitz-Maki Arena.

Tiger coach Jon Holmes said things went reasonably well for a first game, especially against a Raider team that already had a game under its belt. Hastings defeated Eastview 5-4 in overtime its its season opener last weekend.

"We came out a little nervous and tight and we weren't able to adjust to the referees' contact calls as soon as we would have liked," Holmes said.

"But by the third period we settled in and were able to put the puck in the net three times. That is very promising since we only averaged about 1.5 goals a game last season."

Farmington totaled 32 shots on goal in the contest, 18 coming in the third period.

The Raiders scored a power play goal less than a minute into the contest and then added two more scores in the first 3:33 of the second to build a commanding 3-0 lead.

The puck didn't leave the Farmington zone very much in the first 34 minutes, primarily because the Tigers were consistently playing shorthanded. Farmington had 14 minutes of penalties in the second period alone.

"Spending half the game in the penalty box is not a good strategy for winning games," Holmes said.

Haleigh Zwart scored the first Tiger goal (photo by Jim Lindquist)

The first few minutes of the third period featured much of the same kind of play before a goal-fest broke out with the teams combining for five scores in the final 11 minutes.

Haleigh Zwart (from Haley Doll), Madeline Oines and Bria Donnelly (from Rachael Welzin) accounted for the Farmington goals.

Sophomore Madison Bowe worked the nets for Farmington and according to her coach became battle-tested in a hurry.

"She played well," he said. "She was put in the most difficult position by having to face a huge number of penalties and back door opportunities. I thought she controlled her play very well for her first high school game."

Some of Bowe's best work came in the second period when she made 15 saves and kept Hastings off the board after a five-minute major penalty was assessed to Welzin.

Holmes said that tightening up the defensive zone would be a priority in preparing for Thursday night's non-conference game at Rochester Mayo.

"We began to get out of position which led to us chasing instead of controlling the puck," he said. "But again, much of that was due to having to kill all of the penalties."