Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm’s Josh Gulden (20) gets past Tylor Nordquist (24) of Waseca during the first period Thursday at the New Ulm Civic Center.

NEW ULM — Glavine Schugel scored his 26th and 27th goals of the season to give New Ulm a 2-0 lead after two periods before the Eagles scored two empty-net goals in the last two minutes of the game as the Eagles closed out their regular season with a 4-0 win over Waseca Thursday night in a Big South Conference game.

Teagan Kamm and A.J. Arneson added goals for the Eagles who end their regular season at 18-6-1 overall and Big South Conference champions at 15-1.

Schugel, Arneson, Braxten Hoffmann and Josh Gulden had assists.

New Ulm goalie Kyle Esser stopped all 19 Waseca shots as the Eagles outshot the Bluejays 32-19 in the game.

“We had to battle hard tonight,” New Ulm head coach Ryan Neuman said. “Waseca always builds that wall — they do not really pressure you in the defensive zone — they keep you to the outside and make it hard to generate shots and good chances.”

And it worked for the scoreless first period before Schugel broke the ice on a power play goal at the 6:20 mark with Arneson and Hoffmann earning assists.

The score remained 1-0 going into the third period.

“We were not getting a lot of shots past (Ben Diedrich, Waseca goalie),” Neuman said. “It is their defensive scheme. They have been doing it for years. They build that wall and you have to try penetrate and get inside the wall.”

Schugel gave the Eagles a little breathing room when he put a high wrist shot by Diedrich for a 2-0 lead at the 6:50 mark.

The score remained 2-0 until Waseca yanked Diedrich for an extra attacker with less than two minutes left.

Kamm put the puck in the open net for a 3-0 lead and Josh Gulden followed with another empty-net score with 25 seconds left in the game.

New Ulm now prepares for Section 3A playoffs next Thursday when the third-seeded Eagles host sixth-seeded Windom at 7 p.m.

New Ulm has wins of 9-2 and 5-4 over them in the regular season.

“We are a better team on a small sheet of ice and that is what we are playing on here,” Neuman said. “Windom will give us a good game — they have some skilled guys — but I think that we will show up better than we did against them Tuesday.”