Eagles edge Waseca; streak intact

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- New Ulm's five-year hockey winning streak in the South Central Conference is still intact.

Brett Burgau's goal with 8:29 left in the third period broke a 2-2 tie, and Eagle goalie Tyler Zollner came up with six big saves in the final two minutes of the game as New Ulm skated by Waseca 3-2 Friday night in SCC action.

Adam Macho and Kyle Marti netted the other two Eagle goals -- both in the first period.

Aaron Braun and Jeremy Petersen scored the Bluejays two goals, both occurring in the second period.

"That was just a super game," said a somewhat relieved New Ulm coach Tom Macho. "Both teams had good goaltending (Zollner stoped 35 of 37 shots while the Jays Andy Burnett stopped 30 of 33 Eagle shots) -- it was just a bunch of kids with one purpose in mind and that was to score goals. It was a fun game for everyone involved."

Waseca, which trailed 2-0 after the first period, came to life in the second period on goals from Aaron Braun and Jeremy Petersen just 13 seconds apart.

"We had those mental lapses all year long and we did again tonight," said Macho, who takes his team to Minnehaha Academy for a 2 p.m. match-up today. "We got to the bench (after the second goal) and we said that we had to toughen this out -- the kids were really down."

While Waseca scored two quick goals, New Ulm escaped big damage in the period as Waseca had four power play chances in the period and did not score.

"That was fortunate for us," Macho said. "They did not cash in on any of those (power play) chances in that period. They could have buried us in that situation but what happened there was what we have been talking about all of the time -- we get disorganized. We are not patient enough to do the things that we need to do."

"We took a couple of dumb penalties (in that second period) - I took a dumb one," said Burgau. "We knew that we could not let down (when they tied the game)."

Macho said that before the third period, he told his kids that "they had to get back on the page that they were in the first period and they came though."

Breaking down 2-on-1, Burgau took a pass from Landon Rewitzer and put the puck by Burnett for a 3-2 lead.

"I was just hoping that Landon would get the puck over to me," said Burgau. "He did a nice job getting the puck over to me -- I just put it in the net, deked and scored with my forehand."

"That was a beautiful goal," said Macho. "It was interesting that tonight we got two goals from defensemen."

But even with that one goal lead, it took some great saves from Zollner to preserve the win.

"We questioned which way we were going to go in goal (with either Zollner or Jeremy Mueller). Tonight, we guessed right," Macho said. "He was ready to play. We had worked with him all week on not relying on his stick so much -- we took his stick away in practice. Tonight, he had body on almost every shot he had on him and he took some shots into the corner. There were no rebound shots -- that was the key to the game."

New Ulm tallied two goals in the first period to jump on the Jays (1-1; 9-5) right off the bat -- or in this case, stick.

Just over a minute into the game, New Ulm defenseman Adam Macho lifted a puck over by Burnett stick side for a 1-0 lead.

That score became 2-0 when New Ulm scored on a power play.

With Waseca's Mike Swenson in the sin bin for hooking, another defensemen, Kyle Marti beat Burnett with a wrist shot for a power play goal at the 10:25 mark.

"We did what we wanted to do in that first period," Macho said. "We had a list of eight things that we wanted to do tonight and we did them in both the first and third periods. This was a nice win."

New Ulm won the "B" game 9-2. Eric Portner had the hat trick with Brandon Arndt scoring two goals. Nate Kloos, Alex Waibel, JJ Germscheid and Levi Stugelmeyer also scored.

WASECA 0 2 0--2

NEW ULM 2 0 1--3

FIRST PERIOD SCORING

NEW ULM: Adam Macho (Brett Burgau) 1:02. NEW ULM : Kyle Marti (Chris Reinarts) 10:25.

SECOND PERIOD SCORING

WASECA: Aaron Braun (Ryan Hoehn) 3:58. WASECA: Jeremy Petersen (Hoehn, Braun) 4"11.

THIRD PERIOD SCORING

NEW ULM: Brett Burgau (Landon Rewitzer) 8:29.