Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm’s Tristyn Wolner (2) takes the puck up the ice during a Big South Conference girls hockey game against Minnesota River Tuesday at the New Ulm Civic Center.

NEW ULM — Tuesday’s game came down to the special teams.

Minnesota Rivers’ Noelle Simonette’s power-play goal at the 11:27 mark of the second period gave the Bulldogs a 1-0 lead and Macey Portner’s open-net goal with 20 seconds left in the game sealed the deal as Minnesota River blanked the Eagles 2-0 in a Big South Conference girls hockey game at the New Ulm Civic Center.

New Ulm goaltender Ava Schmid stopped 34 of 35 shots, while the Bulldogs netminder Annika Magelee stopped all 22 Eagles shots.

“It was a good first two periods,” New Ulm head coach Derek Johnson said as his team dropped to 3-6-1 on the season. “And in that third period, the frustrations came out for us. The girls got into their own heads – they stopped making plays.”

After a scoreless first 17 minutes the Bulldogs, who had defeated New Ulm 3-1 earlier in the year, and the Eagles were scoreless.

But in the second period Minnesota River took advantage of their third power play of the game when Simonette beat Schmid at the 11:27 mark for a 1-0 advantage.

That lead would carry into the third period where the Eagles, who host Delano Thursday at 7 p.m. at the New Ulm Civic Center, had a five-minute power play at the 5:30 mark of the third period.

But less than two minutes into their power play, the Eagles lost that when they were called for a checking penalty that made it 4-on-4.

Two minutes after that penalty expired, the Eagles were called for a tripping penalty that put New Ulm on the defensive when they were down a goal.

Trailing 1-0 late, the Eagles pulled Schmid for an extra attacker with 37 seconds left in the game.

But 17 seconds later, Portner found the back of an empty net for a 2-0 lead.

“Five on five it was a pretty even game,” Johnson said. “They capitalized on their power-play opportunities and for the most part our penalty kill did pretty well, but they did capitalize on one of them. Our power play was not able to take advantage on any of our chances and that was the difference in the game.”