Hitchcock, Eagles blank Windom

Junior scores two of four goals for New Ulm in first round of sections

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- David Hitchcock is not known as a goal-scorer for the New Ulm Eagle hockey team.

But Thursday night, the junior forward scored two of the Eagles' three second-period goals as they handed Windom a season-ending 4-0 loss in Section 1A hockey.

It was also the last high school hockey game to be played at Vogel Arena.

Tyler Zollner and Jeremy Mueller combined for the shutout with four saves each.

Meanwhile, the Eagles rifled 59 shots at Windom junior goalie Drew Hage.

New Ulm, now 15-9 and the fifth seed in Section 1A, will head West to meet fourth-seeded Marshall Saturday at 7 p.m.

"For the last game at Vogel Arena, our kids are not going to go away with a good taste in their mouth," said Eagle coach Tom Macho. "We did not play well at all -- give Windom credit. They scrapped, but we did not play well at all."

But the Eagles dominated the first period.

New Ulm recorded 15 shots on goal to only one for Windom but could not dent Hage. Macho felt that the Eagles got away from things they had worked on in practice.

"We hung onto the puck way too much. All that we have been working on this week is that they better get rid of the puck in five seconds," he said. "That puck had better be on someone else's stick by then.

"But we threw everything out the window," he said. "We tried to do it all individually."

Despite dominating the opening 15 minutes, New Ulm was scoreless against 1-18 Windom who came in 12th seed but had a hot goalie in Hage.

"My thoughts coming off the ice were 'Holy cow. What happened to the girl's hockey team where they ran into a hot goaltender (in playoffs),'" Macho said. "We have been here before in this situation, and in playoff time, anything can happen. Totino-Grace (defending state Class A champion) is already gone."

But enter David Hitchcock, who would break the ice. After being stopped by Hage on a 2-on-1 break early in the period, Hitchcock beat Hage for the game's first goal when he took a pass from Jeff Schnobrich and found the back of the net.

It was a lift that the Eagles needed after being shut out in the first period.

"We were a little frustrated after the first period," said Hitchcock. "We had our chances but just weren't scoring -- we had the shots but could not get them in. But the goal was pretty big for us ... I got lucky."

The Eagles scored again just 29 seconds later when Jay Geisthardt won a face off and slipped the puck to Landon Rewitzer who made it 2-0.

Then the Eagles went into what Macho described as "one of our lapses" again with the penalties -- three for New Ulm, all coming within a three minute span. It permitted Windom to have two, 5-on-3 advantages that New Ulm was able to kill.

"Taking a penalty is a mental mistake," said Macho. "We took dumb penalties, hitting from behind when the play was gone. Not good penalties."

But after the Eagles killed those penalties, Hitchcock recorded his second goal at the 10:10 mark with helpers going to Nate Kloos and Kyle Marti.

Jeff Schnobrich's goal at the 5:16 mark of the third period, the last goal to be scored in a high school hockey game at Vogel Arena, made it 4-0.

"I hope that we were looking ahead to Marshall which is why they played like they did," said Macho. "They know that the bigger game is coming up on Saturday."

And Hitchcock agreed.

"The last two years, Marshall has not come down for scrimmages and decided not to tell us they weren't coming," he said. "So we want to go there and say at least we showed up."

WINDOM 0 0 0 -- 0

NEW ULM 0 3 1 -- 4

FIRST PERIOD

NO SCORING

SECOND PERIOD

NEW ULM : David Hitchcock (Schnobrich, Kloos) 4:35. NEW ULM : Landon Rewitzer (Geisthardt) 5:04. NEW ULM :Hitchcock (Kloos, Marti) 10:10.

THIRD PERIOD: NEW ULM : Jeff Schnobrich (unassisted) 5:16.