House of fire

Eagle hockey teams score big

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- New Ulm Eagle boys hockey, which has had trouble scoring goals so far this season, may have found the right line combination Tuesday night at Fairmont when the Eagles scored eight goals -- their most this season -- in an 8-2 win.

"It was the first time that we had some people back, and we were still looking at line combinations," Eagle coach Tom Macho said. "We did find one combination that worked real well in Jeff Schnobrich (one goal, three assists), Jordan Trullinger (two goals, three assists) and Andy Metzen (three goals, two assists). They were a house of fire."

Macho said that another pleasant surprise was that the Eagles started to move the puck better.

"We were doing a lot of one-on-one things, because we were worried about the penalties," he said. "(Against Fairmont) our kids were really good about keeping their elbows down and getting to the corner first."

The Eagles also had nine power plays and scored on four of them, which also made Macho happy.

"That is good to see; it means that we took advantage of them," he said. "The game was fairly close and we put plenty of pressure on them. When we had the power plays, we did take advantage."

He added that in addition to the first line, Alex Kral also played well.

"He made the initial play to get something started," Macho said. "He played very well. Brad Clyne in his first time out played well on defense."

The eight goals is something that Macho hopes will carry over for the team.

"They found out that they can score goals. Despite the fact that we beat LHSP (5-4 in overtime), we did not move the puck real well," he said. "The goals were tough to come by, and against Owatonna (an 8-2 loss), we did not set up much of an offense at all. It was good to see this right before a home game Thursday against Marshall.

It is a big section game for us especially at home. Marshall is considered one of the better teams in the section this year."

EAGLES PLAY IN DULUTH TOURNAMENT: After playing in the Breck Tournament for many years, this year the Eagles will play in the Duluth Marshall Tournament December 27-29.

"The reason for the change was that Breck wanted to go to a four-team tournament and it was costing them too much," Macho said.

In the first round, the Eagles play Duluth Marshall. Their bracket includes St. Francis from Canada and East Grand Forks.

"Duluth is one of the top teams in the state and East Grand Forks is always a state tournament contender," Macho said.

The other bracket has Hudson, last year's state champions from Wisconsin, and Superior."

Macho said that New Ulm may elect to start their own holiday hockey tournament in the future.

"We will take a good look at this year with New Ulm hosting the State Bantam "A" Tournament," he said. "We'll get a good idea on how to make tournaments run. We have one of the best facilitiies around in the Civic Center."

EAGLE GIRL'S HOCKEY SCORING BIG: The New Ulm Eagle girls hockey team has put up some big numbers thus far in their 6-2 season.

They have scored 55 goals (nearly seven per game) in eight games while allowing only 17 (just over two per game). Tiffany Hoffmann leads the team with 13 goals and 10 assists, followed by Samantha Richter with nine goals and five assists.

CHARGERS DID NOT PLAY WELL: Minnesota Valley Lutheran boys basketball coach Craig Morgan said that his team did not play well in their 63-52 loss to Sleepy Eye St. Mary's Tuesday night.

"We lost the game ourselves," he said. "We had 26 fouls and put them to the free throw line 35 times. We missed 14 shots right under the basket. Had we made half of them, we would have won the game. We did not seem in sync. St. Mary's played some good man-to-man defense and we just had an off game and they played well.

"We could not get into a flow in the game, and we were constantly fighting that," he said. "Maybe we were a little to ready for the game."

Morgan said that St. Mary's got out to a nine-point lead before the Chargers got the lead down to two points.

"Jason Costello was on a breakaway layup for us, got fouled from behind and rolled his ankle," he said. "He had done some nice things for us offensively but had to come out with a sprained ankle. We missed the things that he did on the court."

Another factor in the game was that MVL had over 20 turnovers.

"When you have 20 turnovers and put them to the free throw line 35 times you do not win," Morgan said.

MVL hosts Cedar Mountain on Friday night.

Jim Bastian can be reached at sports@nujournal.com