Hot-goaltending lifts Austin

BY JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- Last year, the New Ulm Eagles girl's hockey team saw their season end in Section 1A playoffs due to a hot goaltender.

Saturday night, another hot goaltender and a four goal outburst in the second period by Austin saw the Eagles' season come to an early conclusion again as the Packers topped New Ulm 5-1.

The loss ends New Ulm' season with a 13-8-2 mark.

New Ulm was seeded third while the Packers came in as the sixth seeded team.

Kristin Faber scored the hat trick for Austin (13-11-1) with three goals, all coming in the second period.

And Packer goalie Amy Snyder stopped 38 of 39 New Ulm shots.

Sam Richter scored the Eagles lone goal at the 8:25 mark of the third period.

"Hockey is a strange game," New Ulm coach Todd Nelson said. "In playoffs, anything can happen. I don't think that it is that we did not go hard, I think that it is that we did not capitalize on our opportunties."

The Eagles outshot Austin 39-16.

And the opportunities came for New Ulm in the first period as they kept play for most of the initial period in the Austin end of the rink as they outshot Austin 8-2.

"It is one of those things that if you dominate and you do not score, you think that you can slack it a little in the second period. And that is what we did," Nelson said.

The eight shots did not include any rebound shots, which is something Nelson feels the Eagles must improve on.

"We keep telling them year after year that you cannot make a goalie look good," Nelson said. "If you keep throwing the puck up in her body, it allows her more opportunity to stop the puck. You have to put it hard on the ice."

Faber got Austin on the board on only their fourth shot on goal when she beat New Ulm goalie Kayla Nesvold at the 1:42 mark.

After Snyder stopped a potential New Ulm score off of the stick of Emily Drexler, the Packers skated back up the ice and made it a 2-0 game when Jessica Petersen beat Nesvold on the glove side at the 4:22 mark.

"I think that we started to panic then," Nelson said. "We started skating around like we did not know what our assignments were. They score goals."

The Packers would add two more goals which came 75 seconds apart and both off from Faber whose two scores made it 4-0 for Austin. One came on a Packer power play and the other on a tip-in.

"It is not like they kept it in our zone a lot," Nelson said. "It is just that they came down on breakaways or beat our defense. When they had their opportunities, they scored."

The Eagles outshot Austin 14-5 in the period.

Richter got New Ulm on the board when she did what no one else could do, scoring on the Eagles only goal at the 8:25 mark with assists going to Emily Drezler and Stephanie Stewart.

But Austin came right back with their fifth score of the night on a goal from Sara DeVries.

AUSTIN 0-4-1=5

NEW ULM 0-0-1=1