File photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Josh Gordon controls the ball during a Big South Conference boys soccer game against Waseca on Sept. 2.

NEW ULM — Last season, the New Ulm boys soccer team won 11 of its first 13 games, marking the team’s highest win total since the 2008 season where they went 14-5 and won the conference.

This year, the Eagles have started even hotter, winning their first 11 games including victories over Southwest Minnesota Christian and Marshall, who were the only teams to down New Ulm in its first 13 matches. It’s the hottest start for New Ulm boys soccer in team history. The team is currently ranked second in all of Class AA by QRF, behind just Benilde-St. Margaret’s.

“My defense has just been rock-solid,” New Ulm head coach Timothy Plocher said. “We’ve only allowed our goals all year, and two of those goals were [penalty kicks]. So really the other team not being able to get a shot off, and when they do, Austin [Krohn, New Ulm goalkeeper] is able to block it most of the time.”

New Ulm has outscored its opponents 43 to 4 so far this season with six games remaining on the schedule. Along with Marshall and SMC, New Ulm defeated Tri-City United, ranked 16th in the class by QRF, as well as Worthington on Tuesday, ranked ninth in the class by QRF.

“We kind of always have a bone to pick with Worthington especially because they’ve beaten us so many times in recent history,” Plocher said. “When we play them, the guys have an extra breath of life in them. They go above and beyond what they have in the past. Same with Marshall, also recently has been a pretty tough team. Especially last year with them beating us twice, we wanted to make sure we played our A-game there. We’re expecting to play one of those two teams for the conference championship as long as we beat St. Peter and Tri-City United coming up next week.”

But the team will have to avoid the pitfalls of last season. After those first 13 games, New Ulm was unable to get into the win column again, with a draw against Jordan tailing into a loss against Marshall and two losses to Mankato East before falling 3-2 to Jordan in the section playoffs. While all three teams are tough opponents, it was a rough way to end the season for a team that started so well.

“I think it was a sequence of a few things,” Plocher said. “One of them being my group was just younger. It’s the same group as it was last year, but this time they are seniors and juniors as opposed to sophomores and juniors. So that extra year of experience and playing together does a ton.

“The other thing being it was a tougher last few games, and they’re all back to back. There was not enough time for recovery from injuries, so my guys were playing with duct tape and band-aids, so to say.”

In order to avoid a repeat of last year, New Ulm is focused on staying healthy for the stretch run.

“An extra emphasis on our warm-up routines,” Plocher said. “Our stretching, that’s been a big key role. We got some stretch bands at the start of the season, and we’ve been utilizing them and putting them in with our practices to help guys stay looser and make sure that they’re drinking enough water and not gorging themselves on candy or sweets or pop. Making sure they have good meals.”

The Eagles have five games remaining on the regular season schedule. It starts with an away games against Waseca and Mankato East, a home game against TCU, then at St. Peter and home against Orono. Waseca, TCU and St. Peter are conference games, and New Ulm will need to win those if they want to return to the conference championship this year. The Eagles defeated Waseca 9-0 earlier in the year, but TCU and St. Peter provide tougher challenges.

“Tri-City only has two losses, and one of those losses is against us,” Plocher said. “The other loss is a [Class AAA] school. So they’re good competition, and in their section they’re probably going to be the number one [seed].

“St. Peter, they’re our normal rivals in the soccer world, so whenever we play each other, it’s always a good, tough game. They scored first against us last time we played them, and we had to play from behind. Luckily we came out on top, but we’ve got to make sure we keep the pressure up.”

Mankato East has had a tough schedule this year with a 4-4-2 record, but they defeated New Ulm twice last year and are a section opponent. Finally Ororno is ranked 15th in the class by QRF with a 6-2 record.

“They’re not in our section, but they are another [Class] AA school,” Plocher said. “So we could play them again in the state tournament if we were to get that far.”

The Eagles have never made a state tournament appearance since the programs inception. Section 2AA have been dominated by Mankato East, Mankato West Worthington and Marshall in recent years, with New Ulm being unable to crack through in the section tournament. Perhaps if the Eagles can continue what they’ve been doing, this is the year.

“It’s really hard not to look that far ahead,” Plocher said. “You always try to take it one game at a time, you can’t assume you’re going to win every game, every team you pay against. But the main things are going to be that we have to really work on our finishing … In order for us to maintain the home-field advantage, we need the number one or number two seed, so as long as we can close out against especially Mankato East — that will be a very big deciding factor there.”