The Packer girls hockey team put up a fight in its last game of the Austin Merchants/Steve’s Pizza Holiday tournament, but it fell short 4-2 to the Minneapolis Novas (9-7-1 overall) in Riverside Arena Saturday.

Austin’s Carley Grunewald slapped in her second goal of the game to make it 3-2 with 7:37 left in the game, but the Novas answered five minutes later when Kay Fuller slapped in a goal with 2:41 left in the game.

“I was thinking we were gonna have it and I called a timeout to talk about pulling the goalie,” Austin head coach Denny Bray said. “Then all of the sudden we just had a breakdown in our defensive zone.”

Allison Hoban, who won the goalie competition in Thursday night’s shootout, had 31 saves for the Packers (2-13 overall). Grunewald, who won the goal scoring competition in the shootout, finished with three goals in the tournament and was named to the all tournament team.

The Packers will now look to improve in the new year as the a team has 10 games remaining in the regular season and seven of those games will be at home.

“I think we’ve seen improvement from game to game (in the tournament),” Bray said. “We’re not where we should be, but hopefully we’ll turn things around in the new year.”

New Prague beat Tartan 2-1 to win the tournament title.

SCORING SUMMARY

Novas 2 1 1 — 4

Austin 0 1 1 — 2

First period

(M) Katy Fuller 3:59

(M) Maya Lassiter (Maggie Fisher) 6:23

Second period

(M) Olivia Hardacker 7:54

(A) Carley Grunewald (Leslie Fuerstenberg, Kennedy Thompson) 9:56

Third period

(A) Grunewald (Thompson, Myia Hoium) 9:23

(M) Fuller (Maggie Horstman) 14:19

Powerplays: Austin — 0-for-2; Novas — 0-for-2

Shots: Austin — 20; Novas — 35