Aaron Anderson admitted he had some first-game jitters when he got behind the bench for his first game as the Mankato East/Loyola boys hockey coach Thursday night.

“Even after being on the ice with them for a couple of weeks and in a scrimmage, you don’t have a clear expectation of how they’re going to perform in a new setting,” the former Waseca coach said. “It’s a little different in the first game when you finally see who’s going to put what you’ve practiced into play.”

For one period, Anderson must have felt pretty good about everything. The Cougars skated right with Rochester Mayo, and trailed by a goal.

But starting in the second period, the Spartans started to pull away for an 8-1 Big Nine Conference win at All Seasons Arena.

Junior forward Taylor Ries scored East/Loyola’s lone goal, which came at 14:33 of the first period.

The unassisted power-play goal made it 2-1. Each team had 13 shots on goal in the opening period.

“I thought we had a good chance to win the game,” Ries said. “We were working hard, and we had a lot of chances. ... We were pretty excited in the locker room.”

It was the first time Anderson had coached against a Rochester school.

“I felt we were playing well,” he said. “It was back and forth. We played our systems. We looked good. We looked confident.”

But the tight game only seemed to awaken the Spartans.

Mayo put 26 shots on goal in the second period, held the Cougars to five and scored four times.

“They definitely picked it up, but we definitely didn’t play our best,” Ries said.

Starting with a wrap-around power-play goal at 3:28 of the second period to make it 3-1, senior defenseman Rick Weber had two goals and two assists for Mayo. Senior forwards Tom Alexander and Brandon Buske each added two goals, and Chris Goslee and Brad Fisher had the other goals.

The game was played on All Seasons Arena’s Olympic-sized ice sheet, which is 15 feet wider than the Cougars’ regular rink.

“As the game went on, I think they were a little deeper team and playing on the bigger ice helped them,” Anderson said.