Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm’s Mya Hornick skates into the offensive zone during a nonconference girls hockey game against Litchfield Tuesday at the New Ulm Civic Center.

NEW ULM — Michelle Smith’s goal at the 13:13 mark of third period broke a 1-1 tie and lifted the New Ulm Eagles to a 2-1 win over Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato Tuesday night in nonconference girls hockey.

Tristyn Wollner had the Eagles’ other goal in the game.

Jersey Haugen, Mya Hornick, Afton Hulke and Lilly Kral each had assists as New Ulm moved to 4-5 on the season.

Stella Hillmann had the lone Dragons coal on the night.

Ava Brennan stopped 23 of 24 LDC shots in the game, while Dragons goalie Jannelle Quast halted 24 of 26 New Ulm shots.

Smith said that her game-winning goal — on assists from Hulke and Kral — had been worked on in practice.

“In practice we have been working on rushing the net because we have to raise our scoring chances,” she said. “I saw Afton rushing it — the first forward is to rush the net. That is what I did and it worked. It was a set play.”

New Ulm coach Jeremy Reed said that the win was a nice one for his team.

“I really loved the energy that we came out with in that first period,” he said. “We had a little bit of a dip in the second period, but we came down in that third period and tried to take care of things. Overall it is a big win for us.”

The Eagles, who play Thursday at Minnesota River, took a 1-0 lead at the 10:14 mark of the first period when Wollner put a rebound past Quast on assists from Haugen and Hornick.

New Ulm held that lead until Hillmann put a tip shot by Brennan at the 3:55 mark of the third period.

“That was a set play that they scored on,” Reed said. “It was a bang-bang play and there was nothing much we could do about that.”

Except get the win, which Smith said came due to the play of the Eagles.

“I think that we did alright,” she said. “We had good effort in the first period. Our play went down in the second [period], but we played better in the third period.”

Reed said that the win was a big one going into Thursday’s game at Minnesota River.

“This will be our second matchup with [Minnesota River],” Reed said. “I guarantee you that all of the girls in our locker room know what happened the last time we played them. Our games are trending in the right direction — we are happy with our play.

“We are really trying to limit our penalties and keep more 5-on-5 on the ice. The last time we played (Minnesota River) we lost 1-0 and it was on a power-play goal.”