By Travis Rosenau

Journal Sports Writer

New Ulm — Minnesota Valley Lutheran fell to St. Croix Lutheran 64-37 in the girls’ basketball black division championship game of the MLC Tipoff tournament on Saturday.

Cham Omot led the Chargers with 11 points and 11 rebounds for the double-double. Emma Nelson scored seven points off the bench for the Chargers as well.

St. Croix was led by Audrey Gadison, who scored 17 points with five of her shots being 3-pointers.

The Crusaders cruised past the Chargers throughout the contest, scoring the first eight points of the game. MVL finally got on the board with a basket by Omot and a basket by Sarah Dinse.

Once the score was 8-4, St. Croix began to pour it on with 17-straight points before Omot stopped the run with a corner jumper. Lauren Paulsen converted an and-one for the Chargers on their next shot to make the score to 25-9. MVL closed the first half trailing 33-19.

The second-half woes continued for the Chargers as the Crusaders continued to increase their lead up to more than 20. The Crusaders got their largest lead of the night on a 3-pointer in the final minutes to give them a 27-point cushion.

MVL had a tough time getting good shots off and maintaining control of the ball, ending the game making just 25.5 percent of their shots and giving up 36 points on turnovers.

MVL head coach Rollin Timm felt that his girls were met with good defense but was disappointed that a lot of their mistakes were off unforced turnovers.

“We talked about it and talked about it and a lot of those turnovers were off of unforced turnovers,” Timm said. “They were really our own mistakes and yeah they [St. Croix] played good defense, but I guess maybe we were just enthralled by their mystique or something that we just didn’t have it today. We were throwing it away and dribbling it off of our own feet more than anything.”

MVL falls to 2-3 on the year and next hosts Sleepy Eye on Tuesday.