Tiger Scoreboard: January 4, 2014

Girls Basketball
Farmington 79 Henry Sibley 62

Boys Hockey
Farmington 6 Holy Angels 4

Boys Basketball
Farmington 77 Irondale 43

Girls Hockey
Farmington 5 Holy Angels 3

Boys B-Ball: Tigers ice Polars

Johnny Dittman 12 points vs. North St. Paul (photo by Jim Lindquist)

Farmington finished off the first leg of a rare back-to-back game schedule with a 68-39 rout of North St. Paul Thursday night at Tiger Gym. The Tigers travel to Irondale tonight (Friday) for another non-conference game.

The win over the visiting Polars gave coach Shane Wyandt an opportunity to play his entire roster and for the most part he was pleased with the effort.

"Going in, the message was that this was a game we should win," he said. "But on paper we were favored in both of the games in the Hastings tournament, too. In the case of Burnsville that didn't work out so well.

"I thought we were much more patient on offense tonight. When we could run we did, and when we
couldn't we were disciplined in the half court. We kept running our sets until we got the shot we wanted...Our defensive sets were also much improved."

The winners set the tone early, converting nine of their first 12 shots on the way to a 26-12 lead after the game's first eight minutes.

By halftime the lead had swelled to a lopsided 40-19 with the Tigers finishing the first 18 minutes shooting 48 percent (12 of 25). The only thing left to decide was the final score.

Wyandt used nine players in the opening half and by the time the final horn sounded, 18 Tigers had seen floor time.

Eleven Farmington players found their way into the scorebook. Three of them reached double figures with Eli Rockett topping the list with 13 points. Guards Johnny Dittman and Jordan DeCroock added 12 and 11 respectively. Zach Speikers chipped in with eight and Tyler VanWinkle had six.

The only downside to Farmington's ninth win in 11 tries came in the opening moments when senior post Nick Varner after scoring the first two points of the night suffered a jaw injury and did not return.

"Nick was already out for tomorrow because he is having wisdom teeth removed," Wyandt said. "He was in a lot of pain after getting hit tonight, so we'll have to see what the extent of the injury is.  We're hoping he will be ready to go next week."

Tuesday night the Tigers face a big Missota Conference test when they travel to Chaska (7-3) to take on the Hawks who have won six of their last seven games.

Boys Swimming: Tigers have happy new year

Brandon Dion 100 butterfly champion (photo by Jim Lindquist)

The Tigers celebrated the new year with a 93-91 Missota Conference dual meet win over Northfield Thursday night at the Dodge Middle School pool.

Farmington led 93-79 heading into the final event, the 400 freestyle relay, in which it did not compete.

"We had a nice meet tonight," coach Ryan Hamen said. "Many of the boys were a bit tired after doing the marathon (fundraiser) over New Year's....It's always nice to beat Northfield as it is a great rivalry."


Of the 11 events where the Tigers were in the mix, they won seven and finished runner-up in the other four.

Both relay teams, the 200 medley foursome of Ben Gunderson, Robin DeCastro, Brandon Dion and Daniel Berg and the 200 freestyle quartet of Brock Lange, Spencer Kabran, Adam Dougherty and Eric Schimmel were victorious.

The five individual wins came from five different performers: Schimmel in the 200 freestyle; Dion in the 100 butterfly; Berg in the 500 freestyle; Ben Gunderson in the 100 backstroke and Jonathan Bovee on the one-meter board.

The runner-up finishes came from Dion, 50 freestyle; Berg, 200 medley; Schimmel, 100 freestyle and Nick Stephan, 100 breaststroke.

Devon Webb scored the lone Tiger third place finish in the 50 freestyle.

Other Tiger point scorers:
200 freestyle: 4. Lange; 5. A. Dougherty
200 individual medley: 4. Stephan
Diving: 5. Sean Dougherty
50 freestyle: 5. Kueck
100 freestyle: 4. Jonathan Kingsbury; 5. Kabran
100 butterfly: 4. Lange
500 freestyle: 4. Garrett Haugen; 5. Eric Heddinger
200 freestyle relay: 2. Stephan, DeCastro, Webb, Kueck
100 backstroke: 4. David Bovee
100 breaststroke: Jake Bauerle; 5. Kabran

Saturday the Tigers travel to the Aquatic Center on the campus of the University of Minnesota for a big invitational meet.

Tiger Scoreboard: January 3, 2014

Boys Basketball
Farmington 68 North St. Paul 39

Boys Swimming and Diving
Farmington 93 Northfield 91

Girls Hockey: Going out with another win

Megan Stivers goal, 2 assists vs. St. Louis Park (photo by Jim Lindquist)

The Tigers started their New Year's eve party a few hours early with a 3-0 non-conference shutout win over St. Louis Park Tuesday afternoon at Schmitz-Maki Arena.

Farmington got goals from three different players and let its stingy defense and goalie Molly Singewald do the rest.

The victory was the Tigers' third in four games and improved their season record to 5-9-1.

Megan Stivers (from Maddi Oines and Rachael Welzin) and Oines (from Stivers and Welzin) scored goals in a tightly played first period to give the home team an early lead and from there the winners dominated play.

Farmington outshot its guests by a one-sided 31-7 margin over the final two periods and held a 41-17 edge for the game.

Maddi Oines goal, assist (photo by Jim Lindquist)

Michaela Tonsager closed the scoring with a third period goal on assists from Scootie Donnelly and Stivers

Singewald continued her recent strong play in goal, stopping all 17 shots the Orioles sent her way.

The shutout was the freshman netminder's fourth (3 wins and a tie) of the season and lowered her goals-against average to 1.77 while raising her save percentage to .926.

Farmington also ended the 2013 portion of its schedule with a smaller victory of sorts, namely staying out of the penalty box. The Tigers picked up just two minor infractions and spent but 4:00 playing shorthanded.

"We have to keep that penalty number below four if we expect to win games," coach Jon Holmes said.

The Tigers start their 2014 schedule Friday night with a Missota Conference home game with Holy Angels (2-5-2) at Schmitz-Maki.

Michaela Tonsager scored the third Tiger goal (photo by Jim Lindquist)