Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm Steel forward Luc Kreuser takes a shot during the first period of the Steel’s game against the Granite City Lumberjacks Saturday at the New Ulm Civic Center. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

NEW ULM — Alex Nagel’s goal at 16:47 of the third period broke a 3-3 tie and Trevor Woytcke’s open-net goal from 3/4 ice with just over a minute left in the game secured the win as the New Ulm Steel overcame a 3-1 deficit, downing the Lumberjacks 5-3 Saturday night at the New Ulm Civic Center in an NA3HL game in front of over 600 fans.

Nagel scored twice for the Steel. Hunter Johnson, Austin Langworthy and Woytcke all scored for New Ulm.

Luc Kreuser had two assists with Woytcke, Tom Reilly, Langworthy, Max Kjome, Stephen Mordini and Jimmy Miller all adding helpers.

Drew Schenkenberg, making his first start in goal for the Steel, stopped 35 shots as New Ulm moved back into first place in the West Division.

New Ulm fell behind 1-0 after the first period on a goal from Chase DiBara at the 13:07 mark of the first period and then went down 2-0 on a Nick Castro score at 10:02 of the second period.

But Hunter Johnson’s first goal — a power-play score — as a member of the Steel cut the lead to 2-1 at the 15:10 mark.

Braden Altena’ s goal less than three minutes later gave the Lumberjacks a 3-1 lead.

“We were sloppy early,” Steel coach Andrew Kolb said. “Our wingers were not doing a good job, and we were not getting pucks out of our end. And we were not making strong plays with the puck. Against a good team like that, you cannot do that.”

But late in the second period, the Steel made their comeback.

Nagel’s goal with just 24 seconds left in the second period cut the lead to 3-2 and gave New Ulm some momentum going into the final 20 minutes.

There, Langworthy’s goal at the 6:42 mark tied the game on the Steel’s second power-play goal of the game.

From there it was Nagel and Woytcke for the comeback win.

“Teams usually do not come back against a good team like Granite.” said Kolb about the three goal third period in which the Steel fired 16 shots on goal. “You hope you get one goal and then it is a new game.We responded pretty well tonight.”