With a little more than half of its season gone, the Mitchell Marlins girls' hockey team is entering the final push to the playoffs, and head coach Bri Homan said her team should win each of its final eight games.
The three remaining opponents the Marlins play have a combined 9-24-2 record, starting with a two-game homestand against winless Watertown (0-10-1) over the weekend.
"I'm hoping we'll be in the third-place spot going into the state," Homan said. "We had Brookings last weekend and we played really well against them and they're undefeated. We got three goals on them, and it's really tough to score on Brookings."
Mitchell fell to Brookings 7-3 Sunday, dropping its record this season to 6-7-1. But if Mitchell does indeed win its final eight games, it should put the Marlins in third place to finish the season. That should set them up with a first-round matchup against either Pierre, Sioux Falls or Watertown, all teams that have one or no victories so far this year.
Leading the offensive charge in the final stretch will be forward Lindsey Lawrence, who currently is leading the team in both points, with 22, and goals, with 17. Lawrence is currently tied for sixth in the South Dakota Amateur Hockey Association with her 17 goals. The Marlins have a minus-17 in goals for/against this season, as the team has allowed 61 goals and knocked in 44.
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Defenseman Camie Rauscher is second on the team with 12 goals and 19 points. Homan said she has a strong shot from the blue line and sometimes skates the puck up the ice because of the thin roster the team has.
Third in scoring on the team is Anna Rice with 10 goals and 17 points. Between the three of them, they make up 89 percent of the team's scoring, and they scored all three goals against Brookings on Sunday.
"Lindsey and Anna have played together for a long time," Homan said. "Those two make a really good team passing, and they're just in the right spots at the right time."
With the team starting the season with only nine varsity players, one thing Homan preached early in the season was conditioning.
The players must have gotten the message, since they've scored nine third-period goals in the team's last four games.
Holly Zimmer, the team's goalie, has also seen a lot of ice time this year. Zimmer has been put on the ice during every one of the Marlins' games. She has a .873 save percentage -- third in the SDAHA among starting goalies -- and on Sunday against Brookings she saw 51 shots, an abnormal amount in girls' high school hockey.
"She's actually made some really good saves that should have gone in the net and somehow she got it," Homan said.
After the Marlins' two-game stint with Watertown, they travel to Rapid City for a three-game series with the Rushmore Thunder (8-3-0), which is its toughest series remaining record-wise.
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Homan said she would like to see her team keep the penalty kill and power play teams successful going into the playoffs, and she also mentioned the team's chemistry has improved its recent play and should allow it to win eight in a row.
The first two wins will need to come this weekend when the Marlins host Watertown at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3:30 p.m. Sunday.
