Just missing the ‘W’

• Girls hockey

Rosemount has been playing well recently, but wins are hard to come by.

Talk about it

When asked to assess her team’s performance leading up to the holiday break, Rosemount girls hockey coach Tracy Cassano showered the Irish with praise.

At first look, it might be an unexpected response for the coach of a team that had lost three straight games and four out of the last five.

But there is more to just the final result for Rosemount. In fact, Cassano believes the final results will come soon thanks to the way the team is playing.

“I think the coaching staff feels really good about where the team is at and how they are playing,” Cassano said. “The wins aren’t necessarily coming for us, but the focus has been on how we are improving and executing and where we are at.

“We feel real positive and feel good about those. We keep telling the kids they are executing the little things and they are playing three solid periods. We’re playing well in all areas. If we keep plugging away we’ll start to get a couple of those breaks and a couple of those bounces and the wins will come.”

Three of the recent losses have come against ranked teams, including last week’s 5-3 loss to Burnsville.

And Cassano believes the Irish have solved possibly their biggest struggle from early in the season — consistent play through all three periods.

“We really have been more consistent,” Cassano said. “We’ve been pleased with the kids and the things they’ve been working on over the course of the year. It’s been a while here the past couple of years that we’ve talked about being consistent.

“We’re not as focused on the wins and losses. We’re looking at playing three consistent periods and wanting to improve.”

At home against No. 19 ranked Burnsville last week, the Irish were playing from behind early.

The Blaze scored at 4:46 of the first period before Rosemount’s Rachael Kelly answered at 7:57 in the second.

Burnsville then scored four straight goals to take a commanding lead. The Blaze scored three times in the first five minutes of the third period.

“We were outshooting them, we just couldn’t put away any scoring chances,” Cassano said.

The Irish did finish the scoring with a pair of third-period goals.

Sarah Tollefson scored and Kelly struck for her second goal of the game.

Tollefson finished with a goal and an assist. Caitlin Dantzscher made 26 saves in goal for Rosemount.

The Irish will play in a Farmington Holiday tournament next week. Rosemount will play games on Dec. 29 and 30.

Tags: boys hockey, sports