Cougar Boys Hockey Team Remains On A Roll

What a difference a week makes.

Since hitting its low-water mark in a on Jan. 27 at , the Lakeville South boys hockey team outscored the next three teams it played by a combined tally of 25-6.

The latest of those contests, a home matchup against South Suburban Conference rival Eastview on Thursday night, again went convincingly to the Cougars in a 5-2 victory.

"We're playing better — tonight wasn't our best effort, but it still was good, " South coach Kurt Weber said. "After the Eagan game we had a heart-to-heart with the players and I think they learned some lessons from that game."

The Cougars were quick to bounce back from the Wildcat debacle, shutting out Rosemount, 9-0, on Saturday, Jan. 29 and drubbing Rochester Century, 12-3, on Tuesday, Feb. 1 before pouncing on the Lightning.

"The kids learned a lot about how they need to come ready to play every night," Weber said. "We've played well since Eagan and the game tonight ended pretty much the way it should have."

South got on the board early as forward Alex Harvey scored the lone goal of the first period at 4:1o of the frame to give the hosts a 1-0 lead they took into the second period.

Eastview knotted the game at 1-all at 3:20 of the middle frame, but the tie would not last as defenseman Joe Freemark lit the lamp just over a minute later at 4:26 to put the Cougars in the driver's seat for good.

"We didn't panic when they scored," Weber said. "It was great to come back quickly from something like that and score again right away."

Another South defenseman, Drew Brevig, sandwiched the second intermission with a pair of goals to kill any hopes Eastview had of a rally as the senior netted scores at 13:35 of the second period and 2:28 of the third period to put the game out of reach.

"Brevig had a nice game tonight," Weber said. "Several of our guys played real well."

Forward Justin Kloos logged South's concluding strike at 5:54 of the concluding interval, bringing the count to 5-1 before Eastview managed to beat Tyler Schumacher — a sophomore starting his first varsity contest — late in the game with a power-play goal that brought the evening's offensive exploits to a close.

"Tyler did real well tonight, to have him play like that in his first varsity start, all-in-all, is nice," Weber said. "What we need to see now — out of any of our goalies — is consistency."

Schumacher made 22 saves in the game as South improved to 10-7-2 overall and 8-4-1 in the South Suburban with the victory.

Weber said that the starting netminder position is open at this juncture and that Schumacher, Nick Heller and Brady Frahm are all in a "three-man" race to see who will be in-between the pipes for South when playoff time rolls around.

"All of our goalies are good," Weber said. "We just need some consistent play in goal; we've beat teams 6-2 that we should have beat 6-0 and we can't just be giving up goals here and there like that, because in the playoffs that will be the end of us."

The coach did not say who will start the Cougars next game, a Saturday night showdown at Bloomington Jefferson, only noting that South will have to continue playing well heading down the stretch.

"Jefferson will be a good test," Weber said. "We're playing several good teams coming up and we'll see if one of our goalies can emerge and be the kind of goaltender that can keep us in the game."

After this latest stretch that will see the Cougars having played six games in the past two weeks, South will get five days off from competition after the Jefferson contest before a home matchup against Prior Lake on Thursday, Feb. 10.

"We need a bit of a rest," Weber said. "We're at the end of a long stretch and there's some guys on this team that have been doing a lot of work and are tired right now."