Photo courtesy of Don Borstad Cathedral’s Alex Hillesheim attacks the rim after getting by MVL’s Jake Kettner (12) and Jakin Anderson (3) in 2A playoff basketball on Tuesday night.

NEW ULM — No. 3-seeded New Ulm Cathedral fended off a late second-half surge by Minnesota Valley Lutheran on Tuesday night and picked up a 59-53 win in 2A boys’ basketball playoff action.

The No. 6-seeded Chargers (17-10) came back from 17 points down to cut their deficit to just 4, 54-50, with less than a minute to go after a trio of free throws by Jake Kettner. But the Greyhounds (22-5) knocked down enough late free throws to hold on and advance to take on BOLD at St. Peter High School at 7:45 p.m. on Thursday.

Cathedral’s James Gillis and Nathan Hauser each went 2 for 2 at the foul line in the final minute. Gillis’ free throws with 7.0 seconds left were the final 2 points of the game.

“One thing we’ve done well all year is that when teams make runs, we do a really good job of responding to that run,” Gillis said. “And that started in practice because we’ve got some of the best guys who may not play much in the game, but they come off the bench and they just provide great roles in practice and push us every day. Our team — we’re just great at responding to adversity.”

And respond to adversity is exactly what the Greyhounds were forced to do.

Cathedral trailed 6-2 early on but went on a 15-0 run to lead 17-6 after a pair of 3s by Ethan Kirchberg and a 3 each by Jacob Manderfeld and Gillis. MVL’s Mason Cox stopped the long run by Cathedral with a bucket inside.

Another deep 3 by Gillis put the Greyhounds up 23-10 with less than five minutes to go in the half. Gillis led the Greyhounds in scoring with 14 points on the night.

MVL chipped away at the lead with free throws and a 3 by Jace Marotz to trail 23-16 at the half.

Back-to-back Cathedral 3s by Gillis and Alex Hillesheim put the Greyhounds up 31-18 early in the second half. After trailing by 17 after a steal and layup by Cathedral’s Jon Zinniel, MVL cut its deficit down to 39-31 on a bucket inside by Marotz.

With just minutes to go and Cathedral beginning to answer almost every shot MVL put in, things weren’t looking good for the Chargers. But MVL had no intentions of just throwing in the towel and definitely made things interesting.

MVL got its deficit down to 4 twice in the final minute but couldn’t pull out the comeback win.

“We’ve got a group of guys that just love to play basketball, love to hang around each other, and they played hard,” MVL coach Craig Morgan said. “And I’m real proud of them. You get down 17 points, a team could just fold and go away, but they battled and I’m proud of them.”

MVL was led by Marotz with 21 points and nine rebounds and Kettner with 15 points, nine rebounds and six assists. Cox also added 10 points and four boards for the Chargers.

Hauser had 12 points and seven boards for the Greyhounds, while Manderfeld added 10 points. Hillesheim also added 9 points and six rebounds for Cathedral, while Zinniel had 7 points, six boards, three blocks and three steals.

Gillis said that his team will have to bring energy when they take on BOLD next and Hillesheim echoed Gillis’ thoughts.

“Our shots weren’t there the first time, so if that happens again, we know we’ve just got to find another way to win,” Hillesheim said of the team’s last meeting with BOLD, where BOLD won 88-60 on Dec. 14, 2017. “We’re going to really work on it in practice, and we’re just going to find any way to win.”