FAIRMONT — The Fairmont Area Cardinals and Marshall Tigers girls hockey teams played each other twice in December, with both being close games, and Thursday’s contest was no different.

Sydney Mauch broke a 1-1 tie in the third period to provide the Tigers with the 2-1 Big South Conference win.

“She’s one of the most competitive people I’ve ever been around and you can see that,” Tigers head coach Kevin Schroeder said about the sophomore forward. “She willed those goals.”

Cardinals goalie Sadie Sandersfeld didn’t make it easy, however. Sandersfeld didn’t let anything by her in the first period, catching and deflecting 16 of the Tigers’ shots for a first-period shutout. She finished with a game-high 54 saves.

Mauch finally got one past Sandersfeld during the middle period. Tigers’ eighth-grade forward Kaitlyn Timm passed the puck out of traffic to Mauch, and Mauch went the distance, netting the goal with 11:42 remaining.

Cardinals sophomore forward Anna Nordquist had tried for a goal minutes before, but ended up hitting the left pipe. She wasn’t deterred from trying again, and swiped the puck in at the 2:10 mark.

Forward Cori Emler passed the puck to Nordquist, and Nordquist took the puck from the middle of the ice into the net, tying the game 1-1.

In the third period, the Tigers found themselves two players short after receiving a two-minute penalty for body checking and a five-minute penalty for checking from behind. The two penalties were less than 30 seconds apart, but the team managed kept the Cardinals from scoring.

“It’s huge because you could tell they had the momentum in he second period and going into the third period,” Schoeder said. “We were kind of disappointed because that’s what we talked about in between the second and third period is being disciplined, not giving the puck away and just being smart. The girls did a good job of killing off the penalty.”

Instead of giving up a power-play goal, Mauch delivered the eventual game-winner with only four Tigers on the ice. Senior defender Mikayla Campion passed the puck up the ice to Mauch, who sped to the goal and got it past Sandersfeld with 10:51 left in the game.

“We had to give them everything we had tonight, and the girls knew that,” Schroeder said.

Marshall (13-6) plays at Windom on Monday night.

Fairmont Area (7-10-2) hosts Albert Lea at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Marshall     0-1-1–2

Fairmont    0-1-0–1

Scoring Plays

1st Period

No scoring.

2nd Period

M — Sydney Mauch (Kaitlyn Timm), 11:42.

FA — Anna Nordquist (Cori Emler), 2:10.

3rd Period

M — Mauch (Mikayla Campion), shorthanded 10:51.

Shots on goal: Marshall 16-20-19–55; Fairmont Area 5-5-5–15.

Saves: Sadie Sandersfeld (FA)16-19-18–53; Emma Klenken (M) 5-4-5–14.

Penalties: Marshall 3 for 9 minutes; Fairmont Area 1 for 2 minutes.

Power-play chances: Fairmont Area 0-for-3; Marshall 0-for-1.