Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm Eagles’ Carson Uecker (11) goes after the puck alongside Minnesota River’s Cole Goecke (10) during the first period of a boys hockey game at the New Ulm Civic Center on Tuesday night.

NEW ULM — Minnesota River scored two third-period goals to break a 2-2 tie and top New Ulm 4-2 Tuesday night in Big South Conference boys hockey game at the New Ulm Civic Center.

Cole Goecke scored twice for the Bulldogs, with Ryan Kamm and Max Hollerich each adding a goal.

Caleb Forstner and Hunter Larson scored for New Ulm, now 1-1 in conference play. Melvin Sellner, Keaton Weston and Josh Forstner each had an assist.

Eagles goalie Jayden Grunst stopped 31 of 35 Bulldogs shots, while Minnesota Rivers’ Anders LeDell stopped 22 of 24 Eagles shots.

“We did some good things tonight, but it felt like our first game of the year was played two weeks ago,” New Ulm head coach Ryan Neuman said. “But you are going to learn things at the beginning of the season and that was something that we went over with after the game with our players — we cannot bury our head in the sane — and we just have to play simpler hockey and we need to be in better game shape and that will come.”

The Eagles and the Bulldogs were knotted at 2-2 going into that third period when Minnesota River came out flying and the Eagles went flat.

Hollerich’s goal at the 3:15 mark lifted the Bulldogs to a 3-2 lead before Goecke’s second goal of the night three minutes later made it a 4-2 game.

Goecke’s final goal came on the seventh shot of the period for Minnesota River. It was a period where the Bulldogs outshot New Ulm 12-1 early and had a 15-6 shot advantage overall in the period.

“We were giving pucks up and ringing the puck around the boards and that is not our style,” Neuman said. “We had some new guys back on defense that we have to work with. But our forwards also have to help them out and do a better job of supporting them.”

Neuman said that there were times in the game when Minnesota River caught the Eagles in bad spots.

“They created a lot of opportunities and we have to learn from that,” he said. “We had a lot of guys trying to do to much tonight. And Jayden played well in the nets tonight.”

New Ulm is at Marshall on Thursday.