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Trojans crush Eagles

Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm’s Connor Foley (31) takes a shot over Worthington’s Tyler Linder (45) during the second half Tuesday at New Ulm High School. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

NEW ULM — With two seconds left in the first half, New Ulm’s Greg Miller buried a 3-point shot to cut the Worthington lead to 28-24.

But the Trojans’ Terbuto Ochothow sank a 3-pointer from three-fourths court at the buzzer before Worthington ran off the first five points of the second half and eventually come away with a 68-53 win over New Ulm in a Big South Conference game.

Reece Melby paced three Eagles (7-9, 3-5) in double figures with 17. Connor Foley added 15 and Braden Zimmerman 13.

Ochothow led Worthington (8-7, 5-3) with 20 points.

“Worthington is a really good team,” said New Ulm coach Steve Foley, who saw his team drop its fourth straight game. “They are an athletic team. But with that said I felt that we did some really nice things offensively to keep us in the game. But we missed some wide open looks and had some untimely turnovers.”

The first half saw both teams struggle shooting the ball as New Ulm shot just 28 percent (6-of-21) from the field and Worthington making 29 percent (7-of-24).

“I do not know what happened with the shooting,” Foley said. “There was a little bit of defense — a little bit of Tuesday night. We had some good looks and did not convert.”

The Eagles, who host St. Peter on Friday, tied the game at 12 on a Connor Foley basket on which he turned an ankle and left the game for just over five minutes. During that stretch, Worthington grabbed a 24-18 lead before Foley scored.

The Trojans extended that lead in the second half to 39-26 on a 3 from the freshman Ochothow.

New Ulm pulled to within 41-35 thanks to a Melby 3-pointer followed by a drive to the basket. Foley’s jumper saw the Eagles down 6 points.

But a 9-2 run by Worthington moved it into a 50-37 lead with just over 10 minutes left in the game.

“When we are aggressive defensively we take things away from the other team but when we start playing passively we are not denying,” Foley said. We let the team do whatever they want.”

New Ulm did come to within 53-44 on a Zimmerman conventional three-point play with seven minutes left in the game before the Trojans upped their lead to 60-46 and then 64-49 with three minutes left in the game.

“We need to be able to consistently match our opponents tenacity,” Foley said.

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