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BOLD battles back to take down Greyhounds

Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm Cathedral’s Chris Knowles is fouled by a BOLD defender as he takes a shot during the second half Tuesday at CHS.

NEW ULM — Despite building a 17-point lead in the second half, New Ulm Cathedral couldn’t contain the No. 2-ranked BOLD down the stretch on Tuesday night, falling 78-73 in Section 2A boys’ basketball action.

In what could end up being an early playoff preview, the Greyhounds (17-5) looked solid all-around for most of the game, but the Warriors (20-2) showed once again that they deserve their ranking and record.

This was the first nonconference loss for Cathedral this season.

The Greyhounds held a 73-72 lead with less than two minutes to play on Tuesday, but a jumper in the paint by 6-foot-7 senior forward Carter Henry put BOLD back in front by 1 moments later. After a costly Greyhound turnover and a pair of BOLD free throws, the Warriors took a 76-73 lead with 20 seconds to go.

The Greyhounds had a couple more chances to get points on the board late, but another late turnover by Cathedral led to a foul and a free throw by Drew Sagedahl with 2.7 seconds to go. Henry then knocked in another late free throw for the final score.

“Obviously, [BOLD] started making some shots,” Cathedral head coach Alan Woitas said of the second half. “They got out on us in transition a few times and we lost control of the pace of the game for about five, six minutes. We need to do a better job as coaches making sure we rein that back in and just recognize that when things are going bad for us when to slow down or speed up.”

Henry led BOLD with 22 points, while Gavin Vosika added 16 points and Jordan Sagedahl added 13 points.

Cathedral was led by Jon Zinniel’s 21 points, five rebounds and five assists, while Alex Hillesheim added 15 points and eight rebounds. Chris Knowles also had 11 points, all coming in the second half, six rebounds, five assists and six blocks for Cathedral, while James Gillis had 10 points and six boards.

The Warriors started out hot, taking a 13-4 lead early on after a drive inside by Henry. A 3 by Zinniel put the Greyhounds in front 19-18 minutes later.

Zinniel had 15 of Cathedral’s first 19 points.

Back-to-to-back 3s by Gillis had the Greyhounds up double digits for the first time in the game, 35-24, and the Greyhounds held a 39-29 lead at halftime, getting a big block from Knowles in the closing seconds of the first half to send Cathedral into the locker room energized.

Knowles added three early buckets in the second half and after back-to-back 3s by Zinniel, the Greyhounds stretched their lead to 54-37 to force a BOLD timeout with 13:27 to play. BOLD responded out of the timeout with a 23-4 run that was capped off on a bucket inside by Henry to lead 60-58.

Moments later, Henry finished an alley-oop pass from Jordan Sagedahl with a dunk to give BOLD an extra shot of energy and a 67-62 lead with less than five minutes to go.

Despite the loss, Woitas said that his squad’s confidence is still high and there were still good things to take away from Tuesday night.

“There’s a lot of confidence in that locker room that they can play with any team in the section, and we’ve lost a few of these really close ones,” Woitas said. “We’ve just got to keep working and fine-tune a few things. There’s not a lot of people talking about New Ulm Cathedral, and we’re right there in that mix, which is fine with us. We’re ready to go come section-tournament time, we’re excited for a lot of great basketball.”

Cathedral hosts Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart on Thursday.

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