With three second-half goals, the go-ahead one from junior forward Jesalyn Skoglund, the Eagles broke a 1-1 halftime tie to down the Tri-City United Titans 4-1 Thursday night in a Big South Conference girls soccer game at New Ulm High School.

Playing with heavy wind in their face in the first half, the Eagles were happy to turn their attack towards the other end of the pitch for the second half. Skoglund had one good shot at the net on a free kick from 25 yards out less than 10 minutes into the second half, but her shot went just over the crossbar.

She made up for that miss in a big way in the 60th minute when she put her next shot in the net for the lead.

“I think Ellie kicked it from the goal, it was a really good ball, and I just kind of juggled around some players,” Skoglund said of the goal. “My teammates helped me distract them and then I just shot it with my left and it went past the goalie.”

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Morgan Zimanski (6) dribbles the ball during Thursday’s Big South Conference girls soccer game against Tri-City United at New Ulm High School.

Skoglund added an insurance goal off her knee after a pass from eighth-grader Morgan Zimanski in the 69th minute, giving New Ulm a 3-1 lead. The Eagles got their last goal in the final 10 seconds off the foot of Yuridia Fernandez.

With winds between 20 to 25 miles per hour throughout much of Thursday’s game, the Eagles were tasked with running head-on into the wind the first half.

“The wind made it difficult for them to judge the balls that were coming out of the air because it seemed like sometimes at mid-flight, the wind would either die or it would pick up and it was changing the course of the ball,” Eagles head coach Jonathan Johnson said.

Despite that wind, the Eagles were able to get the first goal of the game in the ninth minute on a shot in traffic from Zimanski that got past the left hand of TCU keeper Johanna Zasoski.

The Eagles remained the aggressors until the final 20 minutes of the first half when the Titans got some offense going.

First, it was Guadalupe Lopez intercepting a pass from Eagles goalie Ellie Dake. Lopez got a shot off, but it went far left of the net to keep the Eagles in front. The Titans got their next best chance to score when Kinsley Mach had a straight-line breakaway at Dake, but she was caught up to by Eagles defender Yessenia Fernandez, who booted the ball out of bounds to prevent a shot.

The Titans finally hit pay dirt on a hard shot in close by Mach that found the left corner of the net to tie the game in the 32nd minute.

Mach had another chance on the attack early in the second half, but she was tracked down by defender Zoey Zins, who took the ball and sent it away.

Less than 10 minutes later, Skoglund gave the Eagles a lead for good.

“Just being an upperclassmen, I try to be a leader,” Skoglund, a junior, said. “I’ve gotten a lot better this summer and scoring is kind of expected of me right now, so I just try to put in the goal and it happened today.”

That scoring is extra expected now as the Eagles are without junior attacking midfielder Piper Kapolczynski, who was lost for the season with a knee injury obtained in the first game of the year. But in all honesty, the Eagles haven’t really been without her.

“Her input on the bench is phenomenal,” Johnson said of Kapolczynski. “She knows all these girls and she knows me and she just says it before I’m going to say it, along with the rest of my coaching staff. I said, ‘You’re staying on the bench, I’m not taking you off the roster.’ … I enjoy her presence, she’s a very good asset to this team.”

The Eagles started the 2011 season 8-0 before a tie with St. Peter ended their win streak. With the hottest start to a season in 14 years, Johnson said the hot start is due to the team’s attitude and work ethic.

“They’re into the sport, they’re into soccer, they’re here early,” Johnson said. “They’d stay late if they could. I say, ‘No, we’ve gotta get out of here, somebody else wants the turf.’ But they would stay here if they could. They’ve just got a great attitude. … We’ve even got some eighth-graders, seventh- and eighth-graders, that are really picking up the pace. From when I started doing this a long time ago, that was unheard of the way those kids are playing.”

Dake had five saves for New Ulm.

The Eagles (5-0, 2-0) are at New Prague for on nonconference game on Saturday, while TCU (3-2, 0-2) hosts Waseca on Tuesday.