FAIRMONT — The streak has ended.

The Fairmont Area Cardinals beat the Worthington Trojans 1-0 in a Big South Conference boys hockey clash Thursday night at Martin County Arena in Fairmont.

The win is the Cardinals’ first of the season. Cheers could be heard coming from the Fairmont Area locker room after the game.

“It was just a happy moment, a happy moment for everybody,” Fairmont Area head coach Kris Olson said. “It’s a big monkey off everyone’s back when you break that egg.”

The lone goal of the game came on a power play with 30 seconds remaining in the second period.

Tanner DeWar collected a pass near the Cardinals’ attacking blue line and faked a slap shot before passing to Tony Nuss on the other side of the blue line. Nuss shot toward the goal with multiple players waiting in front, including Max Seifried, who redirected the puck with his skate past the goalie and into the bottom-left corner of the net.

Along with Seifried’s goal, Tyson Geerdes’ performance in net powered the Fairmont Area performance. Olson said Geerdes was an important part of the Cardinals’ win.

“That was key, that’s huge,” Olson said of Geerdes’ play. “When you have a strong goalie back there, it builds confidence, you could see that tonight. The guys were confident in their goaltender and they played a strong defensive game, too.”

Geerdes made 30 saves to net the shutout victory for the Cardinals. Fairmont Area also played stellar defense, Olson said.

“They blocked some shots and took care of the front of the net, that was huge,” Olson said. “We didn’t give up the cross-ice open shot every time they came down the ice, they were contested and it was a good night.”

The Cardinals got 25 shots on goal during the contest, while the Trojans had 30.

Down one going into the final period, the Trojans had an opportunity to tie. With 4:55 left, Worthington had a power-play opportunity and was able to get four shots on goal during the sequence, but Geerdes made each save opportunity he got to keep the Cardinals in front.

With a minute left, the Trojans pulled their goalie and the Cardinals tried to get an insurance goal every time they were able to gain possession, but were unable to add to the lead.

Olson said his team won because they had 51 minutes of quality play.

“We were finally able to put together a full game,” Olson said. “The guys played solid beginning to end and we had really solid goaltending.”

Fairmont Area (1-12, 1-8 Big South) hosts Morris/ Benson Area at 3 p.m. Saturday at Martin County Arena.

Worthington (1-13, 1-10 Big South) plays at Waseca at 3 p.m. Saturday.

Worthington 0-0-0–0

Fairmont Area 0-1-0–1

Scoring Plays

1st Period

No Scoring

2nd Period

FMT–Max Seifried (Tony Nuss, Tanner DeWar), 0:30.

3rd Period

No Scoring

Shots on goal: Worthington 30; Fairmont Area 25.

Saves: Preston Thavixay (WOR) 24; Tyson Geerdes (FMT) 30.

Penalties: Worthington 4 for 11 minutes; Fairmont Area 3 for 6 minutes.

Power-play chances: Worthington 0 for 3; Fairmont Area 1 for 4.

Girls Hockey

Worthington 4, Fairmont 1 — Kessey Aljets’ pair of goals powered the Trojans past the Cardinals in Big South Conference girls hockey action Thursday night in Worthington.

Riley Nickel opened the game’s scoring with a first period goal off an assist from Brynne White with 7:28 left in the opening segment.

Worthington’s Ashton Fogelman scored the lone goal of the second period at the 13:31 mark of the second period off White’s second assist.

Aljets scored her first 3:57 into the final segment off a Kya Nickel assit to build Worthington a 3-0 lead.

Mackenzie Householder scored Fairmont’s lone goal off a Joni Becker assist with 10:27 left in the game.

Aljets scored her second unassisted with 9:54 remaining.

Goaltender Hadley Artz made 37 saves for the Cardinals, which had 20 shots on goal.

Fairmont Area (3-14, 3-9 Big South) plays host to Morris/Benson Area at 1 p.m. Saturday.