After losing games to West Fargo and Luverne, the New Ulm Eagles boys’ hockey team has righted the ship as they won their fifth straight game Tuesday night with a 3-1 win over Minnesota River in a Big South Conference matchup.

The win also puts New Ulm, now 10-1 in conference play, all alone in first place and 12-4-1 overall. Marshall is in second place with an 11-2 mark, with both losses coming at the hands of the Eagles.

And New Ulm is also the top team in Section 3A according to the QRF rankings but has a big sectional game Thursday night in Hutchinson. The Tigers (10-6-1) are currently third in QRF behind Marshall and the Eagles in Section 3A.

“This is a game if we win that could put us in the driver’s seat to get the No. 1 seed in the section,” New Ulm coach Ryan Neuman said.

Neuman said that the spark for the five-game winning streak has been the improved forechecking (checking a team in their own defensive zone).

“That has been pretty good and we are not giving up a lot of goals (five goals in those five games) and we have tightened up some of our defensive items. We have just been playing a little bit better.”

Offensively, the Eagles have scored 32 goals in that same span.

And that offense has been bolstered by the return of senior Glavine Schugel from a high ankle sprain that sidelined him for the early part of the season. In his 13 games this season, Schugel has scored a team-leading 17 goals and tossed in 13 assists, second only to sophomore Braxten Hoffmann’s 12 goals and 14 helpers in 17 games.

“He (Schugel) is still not 100%, but he is getting better,” Neuman said.

The Eagles also have been getting balanced scoring from Nolan Drill (6-10) A.J. Arneson (5-9), Ethan O’Connor (4-10) and Cade Bushard (10-4).

Neuman knows that a win Thursday over the Tigers would solidify the Eagles for the top seed in the section.

“It would be pretty hard for other coaches in the section to vote against us unless we went on a big slide at the end of the regular season,” he said. “But we need to take care of that Hutchinson game first.”

The Eagles then host Southwest Christian Friday night at the New Ulm Civic Center at 7:30 p.m., with the JV game starting at 5:30 p.m.

“They are a new program out of Richfield and they want to eventually be a team like Holy Angels once they get going,”said Neuman.

NEW ULM BOY’S BASKETBALL TAKING SMALL STEPS FORWARD: The New Ulm boys’ basketball team is currently 3-10 overall and 1-4 in the Big South Conference.

But in the last six games, the Eagles have gone 3-3 and pushed a 10-5 St. Peter team to the limit late in the game.

New Ulm now begins its second half of the Big South Conference schedule Friday when they host Fairmont. The Eagles lost to the Cardinals (6-5, 2-2) 57-45 earlier in the season.

While how the Eagles do in their second meeting with the Cardinals can be a measuring stick, head coach Matt Dennis thinks that every game that his team plays can be a barometer for his team.

“Every time we step on the floor is an opportunity to either take a step forward, stay even or move backwards,” he said. “Every game is an opportunity for us.”

Dennis added that his team’s play in recent losses is also a small step forward. “Our game against St.Peter was step forward for us in the second half defensively.”

And the Eagles’ game against a Delano squad earlier in the season, now an 11-2 Tigers team, was a positive in the first 18 minutes.

“That was a big step forward in the first half for us,” Dennis said. “We showed that if we stick to our game plan we can see progress.”

As Dennis said earlier in the season, defense has to be stressed by his team. Offensively the Eagles are averaging 56 points a game but they are giving up 70 points a game.

“We need to keep teams under 60 points a game.” he reiterated. “If you look at our wins they have all been when we have kept teams under 60 or right around 60 points a game. We need to have that consistency on defense — we need to make stops and keep people out of the paint and closing out on shooters. That is a huge thing for us now.”

In the Eagles’ first meeting with Fairmont, Dennis said that they did not utilize 6-foot-7 senior post player Cole Rhode like they wanted to.

“He totally demands other teams to pay attention to him,” Dennis said. “That opens up a lot of other people. If you look at our box scores of recent game, when Cole has been in the lineup, you see more of our guys in double digits for us in scoring. Josh Wenninger and Charlie Osborne have scored more because there is so much attention being paid to Cole.”

The Eagles also utilize 6-foot-5 Reece Melby.

“We become a more dangerous team with them.”

The Eagles have a realistic chance of wins in their next four games.

“Four or five games mean four or five steps forward,” Dennis said.