An Austin forward scored in just about every way possible to trigger the Packers to a 6-3 victory over Tartan in the third place game of the ninth annual International Paper/Austin Merchants Holiday Tournament Wednesday at Riverside Arena Wednesday.

Catherine Wagner scored four goals for the Packers (4-7-2 overall), including two first period goals in a span of four minutes. One on a rebound from a shot off the stick of Ashley Arhart that she snuck past the leg of Tartan’s goalie Kaitlyn Rolonado, and another that she snuck around the back of the net to slip one past Rolando, who was on honorable mention for the All-Tourney team.

“It was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun,” Wagner said. “Tartan has a real good goalie, so it was nice to see her kind of out of position and get the puck behind her.”

Wagner got a little help from the defense to score in the second period to make it 3-2 with 10 minutes left in the period. During an Austin power play, it looked as though Tartan had a breakaway brewing, but Austin’s Alix Borland swept the puck away and got it to Wagner, who turned into an Austin score and gave the Packers the lead for good.

“You’re always looking for a pass from the defense, and it was nice of them to break it up like that to give us a shot down at the other end,” Wagner said.

Borland sometimes plays forward, but Austin head coach Denny Bray had her in the game on defense due to the absence of Kyli Ellingson, who was on a family vacation.

“Alix did all right. She played defense for us a couple years back. We’ve been playing her on defense on the power play, so we figured (with Kyli gone) ‘hey let’s go for it.’ Jessica Nkhata’s been playing real good for us too,” Bray said.

Wagner put the Packers up 4-2 when she bounced a shot of Lombardo’s chest pad to score a goal in the third period.

Then things got a little strange.

With 10 minutes left in the game, Tartan was called for a penalty, so they pulled their goalie. But before Austin could touch the puck to start the powerplay, the Titans accidentally knocked the puck the length of the ice back into their own goal. Ashley Crump was credited with the goal since she was the closest Packer to it.

Tartan’s Tara Korf scored her second goal of the day shortly into the powerplay 12 seconds later to make it 5-3 Austin, but Tartan (5-9 overall) didn’t score again.

Kristen Stanek sealed the game with an empty netter with four seconds left.

“You’ve got to play with intensity and we did that today,” Bray said. “Wags always plays with intensity, I don’t have to worry about that. I think finally her teammates are catching that intensity from her. Everybody worked hard today.”

The Packers survived some early adversity as Korf scored 58 seconds into the game and the Titans had four power plays in the first period, including a 5-on-3 advantage for about two minutes.

“My goal was to cover everything and get out of the front of the net and stop rebounds,” Austin goalie Audrey DeVries, who had 35 saves, said. “It was a big deal (to take third), since we’ve kind been underdogs lately. Getting two out of three will help us in the future. Now we know that we can do it.”

Bray said he wasn’t surprised by his team’s resolve after falling behind early.

“This is a team that doesn’t roll over and die. We’ve bounced back a lot and the Owatonna game is the only one we weren’t in this year,” he said.

Wagner was selected to the first-team All-Tourney team and Arhart was honorable mention.

Northfield beat Albert Lea 2-1 in the Tournament Title game

The Minneapolis Novas beat Simley 5-1 in the fifth place game and New Prague beat Willmar 3-2 in the seventh place game.

Tartan 1 1 1 – 3

Austin 2 1 3 – 6

First period

(T) Tara Korf :58

(A) Catherine Wagner (Ashley Arhart) 11:24

(A) Wagner 15:34

Second period

(T) Andrea Heller (Chelsea Regen, Korf) 3:21

(A) Wagner (Alix Borland) (Borland) 7:32

Third period

(A) Wagner (Carley Grunewald) 2:17

(A) Ashley Crump (empty net) 7:00

(T) Korf (Becca Bernardy) (powerplay) 7:12

(A) Kirsten Stanek (empty net) 16:56

Shots: Austin – 31; Tartan – 38

Powerplays: Austin – 1-for-6; Tartan – 1-for-8