Orono starts fast, downs Eagles 5-2

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- The Orono Spartans, ranked fifth in Class "AA" hockey, scored three first period goals -- two in a matter of six seconds -- and went on to down the New Ulm Eagles 5-2 Tuesday night in non-conference hockey at Vogel Arena.

Glenn Ylitalo scored twice for the Spartans with both his goals coming in that six second span.

Brett Burgau and Jeff Schnobrich lit the lamp for the Eagles.

"That is a good club," said Eagle coach Tom Macho. "I can see why they are ranked fifth in the big schools. This is their third game and they took us by surprise -- you could tell it was their third game compared to our first of the season and that first period, they had us reeling. But after that first period, we settled down and it was a 2-2 game after that point."

But it was that first period that set the Eagles back to where they could not recover.

Junior forward Glenn Yitalo got the Spartans, coached by Kevin Armstrong who was Macho's assistant at New Ulm 15 years ago, on the board at the 9:23 mark when he took a centering pass from Tripp Standa and beat Eagle goalie Jeremy Mueller on his stick side for a 1-0 lead.

But before the announcer could get the name of Glenn Ylitao announced, the forward beat Mueller again just six seconds later for a 2-0 lead.

"That second goal was a bad-angle one," commented Macho. "When he scored that first goal, the heads of our players went down and that is something that we have to work on with the number of new players that we have. They kept the momentum going."

While the first two Spartan goals came on decent shots, the third goal for Orono came with the Eagles a man short

Pat Dynan drilled a slap shot that was stopped by Mueller but managed to trickle into the net for a 3-0 lead with only 31 seconds left in the first period.

"We got down in a hole and had to find a way to dig ourselves out of it,"Macho said.

And the Eagles managed to slice that lead to 3-1 just over three minutes into the second period when junior Brett Burgau redirected an Adam Macho shot into the net with Jay Geisthardt getting the second assist at the 3:39 mark.

"That was a nice goal," commented Macho."We really needed a goal at that time to prove that we could play with them. And we really need to keep working like that all year -- we are going to have to work hard to score a goal."

But the Spartans would repond to that Eagle goal with two of their own -- the second coming off another power play as Josh Pauer and Johnny Jochims scoring. Jochims was a power play tally for Orono and their second of the game as they took a 5-1 lead after two periods.

"We had eight penalties tonight which is more than they had," said Macho. "And penalties are going to kill you especially against a good team like Orono. I am not sure what some of those penalties were but a penalty is a penalty. And our penalty killing was not sharp tonight."

New Ulm scored their second goal of the night and the only goal for either team in the third period off the stick of Jeff Schnobrich with Adam Fromm and Scott Roiger picking up assists.

"That is the way that we need to score -- a rebound here and there," said Macho. " We have to keep working hard out there.It was nice to see Jeff get a goal (in our first game.)"

"I am disappointed in the loss but as we fought our way back the only thing that I was disappointed in was our penalties."

The Eagles next game does not get any easier when they travel to Albert Lea to take on the Tigers on Thursday.

The Eagles lost the JV game 4-3.

JJ Germscheid, Eric Portner and Nick Bessmer scored for the Eagles with Justin Traulich, Brandon Arndt, Alex Waibel and Larry Blackstad adding assists.

ORONO 3 2 0 -- 5

NEW ULM 0 1 1 -- 2

FIRST PERIOD:

ORONO: Ylitalo (Standa) 9:23. ORONO: Ylitalo (Dynan) 9:29 ORONO: Dynan (Ylitalo). 14:29.

SECOND PERIOD:

NEW ULM : Burgau (Macho, Geisthardt) 3:37. ORONO: Pauer (Skoog, Jochims) 8:43. ORONO: Jochims (Skoog, Pauer) 14:12.

THIRD PERIOD:

NEW ULM :Schnobrich (Fromm, Roiger) 1:17.