Eagles bounce back

BY JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM - New Ulm High School hockey coach Tom Macho knew that his team needed for forget the 2-1 loss to Willmar last Thursday -- its first loss at Vogel Arena this season.

And they did in a big way.

Lead by a Chris Reinarts' hat trick and two goals from Jamie Hoffmann and Brent Clyne, the Eagles improved to 16-3 on the season with an 8-2 win over Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato Monday night.

Reinarts tallied two goals in the first period when New Ulm scored three times before getting the hat trick at the 7:40 mark of the third period to give the Eagles a 6-1 lead.

"The kids knew that in the loss to Willmar, they let them in the game to long -- they did not finish them off," Macho said. "But tonight, they were determined before the game to score early and score often. We came out with all of our lines scoring -- our third line did not score tonight -- but the last time that we played them (a 4-0 New Ulm win in Litchfield) they did all the scoring for us.

"We also got some very good goaltending from Gary Wurztberger. The shots were not that far apart (New Ulm outshot the Dragons 35-28) but he did a nice job."

Wurtzberger allowed goals in the second and third period.

New Ulm scored three first period goals in the first 10 minutes of the game as they used their quickness to combat the body checking style of the Dragons.

Reinarts got his first goal of the game when he beat Andy Twardy at the 2:31 mark for a 1-0 lead before Brent Clyne tallied his first goal of the night when the Eagles were on the power play - on an assist from Reinarts -- 40 seconds later to up the lead to 2-0.

New Ulm's second power-play opportunity of the night resulted in another goal, this coming from Reinarts with Hoffmann and Clyne getting the assists.

"Whenever we play Litchfeld, we know that anything can happen," said Macho. "We got the lead and the play got a little chippy. But we worked the power play well tonight which is nice to see with playoffs coming up."

Clyne recorded his second goal of the evening on a face-off just to the right of Twardy. Hoffmann won the toss and Clyne blasted the puck by a screened Twardy for a 4-0 lead at the 7:07 mark. "That was a pretty goal that you keep working on," commented Macho. "You keep working on it (in practice) but it never happens in a game. But in this case, Jamie (Hoffmann) won the face-off which he has won a lot this year. It was a gorgeous goal because it worked just the way it was supposed to."

LDC cut the lead to 4-1 to end the second period before New Ulm came out and scored four times.

Hoffmann got New Ulm's third power play goal of the evening at at the 3:23 mark on the final period on an assist from Scott Stueber before Reinarts recorded his hat trick on an assist from Corey Schnobrich.

Goals from Tyson Clyne and Hoffmann - Hoffmann's the fourth power play score of the night - came less than three minutes apart for the 8-2 lead.

"We got the crowd into it and took them out of it,:" said Macho. New Ulm played that third period without the services of Brent Clyne who had a bruised shoulder. "He will be OK - it is not the shoulder that he had surgery on. We had other people step up."

Macho said that he was worried about the chippiness of the game when New Ulm had the lead. "We told our players to keep their heads up but it really did not get to that. In the third period part of it was that we put a few goals in and put the game out of reach."