Staff photo by Jeremy Behnke New Ulm’s Nicole Porter dribbles the ball upfield in New Ulm’s victory over Faribault on Saturday at New Ulm High School.

NEW ULM — The New Ulm girls’ soccer team has plenty of speed. On Saturday, the Eagles got to show that skill off against Faribault.

New Ulm raced to a 4-0 halftime lead and ran away with a 6-1 victory over Faribault in a nonconference girls’ soccer game. The Eagles’ speed was evident and they fired 20 shots on goal in the first half alone.

“Our speed paid dividends because we ran by them quite a bit, a lot of through balls that worked for us,” coach Jonathan Johnson said. “Just different people scoring, everything was working and clicking well.”

Gina Harmening scored two goals to lead the way offensively. New Ulm had a balanced-scoring attack as five different players found the back of the net. Jessica Moellenhoff, Bryn Nesvold, Bekah Friendshuh and Elle Cooper also scored for New Ulm.

While the Eagles were dominating the ball early, they were taking long-range shots against the wind and that didn’t help.

“We needed to get closer, we were taking them from too far out and that’s easy for the goalie to catch,” Harmening said.

After a slow start offensively, the Eagles got on the board when Moellenhoff scored her first goal of the season at 15:40. Four minutes later, Nesvold put the Eagles up 2-0 and Harmening scored her first goal of the game and the season with 9:43 left in the first half. She scored another goal with 46 seconds before halftime to give the Eagles a 4-0 lead at the break.

The Falcons got on the board with 19:37 left in the game when Samantha Holmberg scored, but New Ulm closed the game out with two goals. Friendshuh scored her second goal of the season with 14:50 left to make it 5-1 and Cooper, who led the team in scoring last year, scored her first goal of the season with 7:09 left.

New Ulm (3-1) is at Mankato East on Monday.