Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Brooke Arneson (13) handles the puck behind the Minnesota River net during a Section 2A girls’ hockey playoff game at the New Ulm Civic Center on Tuesday.

NEW ULM — They say that baseball is a game of inches, but the same thing could be said for the New Ulm Eagles girls’ Section 2A playoff hockey game against Minnesota River Tuesday night at the New Ulm Civic Center.

New Ulm’s first two goals of the game were inches from being stopped before an open-net goal with less than a minute remaining in the contest sealed the deal as New Ulm eliminated the Bulldogs 3-0.

Jada Rahe, Mya Hornick and Maddi O’Connor scored goals for the Eagles, who improved to 15-3 on the season.

New Ulm now will go to Delano at 7 p.m. Thursday to meet the the second-seeded Tigers.

Evie Sellner, Hornick and Rahe each had an assist.

Ava Brennan stopped all 14 shots on her as the Eagles had a big advantage in shots on goal as they fired 45 at Bulldogs goaltender Amelia Messer.

And while the Eagles had those 45 shots, New Ulm was able to net three goals — two of which made it by inches.

The Eagles took a 1-0 lead at the 8:33 mark of the first period when Rahe’s shot was initially blocked by Messer but the puck bounced off of her stick and rolled into the net.

After a scoreless second period that saw Brennan keep the Bulldogs off of the scoreboard when she stopped Nicole McCabe on a breakaway, the Eagles scored twice in the final period.

Again, one by inches.

New Ulm made it 2-0 on a Hornick power-play goal that saw the puck slowly cross the goal line just before the whistle blew. That came at 9:50.

Minnesota River pulled Messer for an extra attacker with under a minute left and O’Connor skated in all alone to seal the game and send New Ulm to Delano.