Someone should have told the Steel players that the game had almost 30 more minutes to go.

The Blizzard’s Derek Dropik’s hat-trick goal 1:23 into overtime lifted Alexandria to a 6-5 win over the Steel Friday night at the New Ulm Civic Center.

New Ulm outshot Alexandria 43-24 in the game.

Mack scored twice for New Ulm (6-4-0-1), with Jacob Halvorson, Joey Gimberlin and Keegan Bauman scoring goals.

Michael Savelkoul and Looft each had two assists, with Oare, Stanislov Danaev, Teddy Lillico and Keegan Bauman each adding helpers.

Steel goalie A. J. Cohen stopped 18 of 24 shots.

“The only good thing I can say about this game is that this game may be a learning experience,” Steel head coach Zach Stepan said. “After we went up 4-1, we started to think that the game was going to be easy and Alexandria shoved it right back down our throats.”

Mack’s second goal broke a 1-1 tie after the first period as the Steel clearly were the dominant team early in the second period.

Mack’s goal came on New Ulm’s 25th shot of the game. At that same time, the Blizzard had managed only nine.

But while the Steel seemed to relax, the Blizzard picked up the pace. Brandon Connett’s goal on a breakaway cut the lead to 4-2 before Jack Taylor’s shot snuck through Cohen’s pads exactly five minutes later as the Blizzard pulled to within 4-3 after two periods.

Keegan Bauman’s goal at the 4:24 mark of the third period gave the Steel some momentum back and a 5-3 lead.

But Dropik’s score at the 10:11 mark cut the lead to 5-4 before Dallas Duckson tied the game at the 13:22 mark and sent the game into overtime.

“Looking at the shots, I think that we played decently well for the most part,” Stepan said. “The problem was that the chances they got were grade “A” scoring chances. But we cannot have our starting goalie giving up six goals on 24 shots. As much as I can preach from the bench that when we were up 4-1 that the game was not over, they need to get it through their heads. It is what it is. We need to look at tonight [Saturday] and get 2 points.”

The Steel host Willmar at 7:10 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 2.

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