Eagles fall in opener to late Tigers flurry
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By Jim Bastian
sports@nujournal.com
NEW ULM - For the first 34 minutes of their game with Hutchinson, the New Ulm Eagles girls hockey team and the Tigers were knotted up at 2-2.
But two Hutchinson goals coming eight seconds apart early in the third period and a third score five minutes later lifted Hutchinson to a 5-2 win over the Eagles Thursday night in a nonconference game at the New Ulm Civic Center.
Jayle Mauer, Kylie Neuberger, Hathaway Reiter, Chesney Nelson and Adler Nelson scored for the Tigers.
Tenley Wertisch and Abigail Forstner scored goals for New Ulm, with Rivers Helget, Jersey Haugen, Wertisch and Brogan Hulke each getting an assist.
Eagles goaltender Lyla Moldan stopped 20 of 25 Tigers shots in the season-opening game.
"We broke down in that third period," New Ulm head coach Derek Johnson said, "And what did us in was what I had warned them about between each period - [Hutchinson] was getting a lot of open looks on net and that it was going to come to bite us - and in the third period it did. Two of their three goals in that third period came from that."
The Tigers grabbed a 1-0 lead at the 6:49 mark of the first period when Maurer beat Moldan on the stick side.
Hutchinson kept that lead until the 9:31 of the second period when Wertisch knotted the game with assists from Helget and Haugen.
Both teams then exchanged goals in the period, with Neuberger lifting the Tigers to a 2-1 lead before Forstner tied the game on a goal, with Wertisch and Haugen earning helpers.
"We were even in the first two periods and I felt that we were the better team in that second period," Johnson said. "We had much more offensive zone play than they did and we got our two goals in that period."
But goals eight seconds apart early in the third period put a damper on the home opener.
Johnson said that the Eagles' lines Thursday were all brand new.
"I was happy to see the puck movement that we had especially in the first two periods," he said. "We moved the puck quickly and had some offensive zone time and that is something that we can build on."
New Ulm is at South St. Paul on Saturday.