Girls Soccer: Tigers make connections in section win

Kali Allard scored the third Farmington goal (photo by Jim Lindquist)

After the Tigers lost at Holy Angels 1-0 last week to drop out of the Missota Conference championship conversation, coach Tracie Randall said her team simply wasn't making he connections it needed to be successful on the offensive end of the field.

In Tuesday night's Section 1AA quarterfinal match-up with Rochester Century all circuits were open in a convincing 4-1 victory.

The win vaulted the third-seeded Tigers into Saturday's semifinals at second-seeded Lakeville South.

"The focus this week has been on intensity and teamwork," Randall said. "The conference season is gone. It would have been nice to win it again this year but it didn't happen. Now we are concentrating on the next three games and a chance to get to the Metrodome."

The visitors shocked the Tigers with the first score of the night on a perfectly placed free kick from 27 yards out that caught the upper right corner of the net.

Randall said that after three strong days of practice she wasn't all that concerned about her team's early deficit.

"Maybe earlier in the season I would have been worried because we have been in so many 1-0 and 0-0 games," she said. "But not tonight and not after seeing how hard we had worked for 90 minutes every day in practice."

The winners tied the count 11 minutes in on a pin-point crossing pass from Shannon McKnight to Nicole Doran and then took the lead for good on a Kelli Elmer rebound of a Sarah Zak shot with 26:40 remaining in the half.

Isabelle Ferm led a strong defensive effort (photo by J. Lindquist)

Farmington scored its third goal of the half with 10:32 remaining when Kari Allard directed Hannah Miller's corner kick into the net.

The Tigers dominated possession in the second period and scored the final goal of the night with 10 minutes remaining on a nifty individual move by Megan Graham who deked a Panther defender and hooked a shot by the outstretched Century goaltender.

The stingy Tiger defense led by all-stater Isabelle Ferm turned in another quality performance. Century had but one scoring opportunity after intermission. That hit the cross bar 18 minutes into the half.

Tiger keeper Ashley Becker had a relatively quiet night in net, stopping seven of eight shots she faced.

Saturday the Tigers head to South for a rematch with the Cougars. The teams battled to a scoreless overtime tie when they met in the same venue on Aug. 27.

"We'll be playing on grass do we'll be out working on our practice fields the next couple of days," Randall said. "We're excited to be playing them again."