Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm Cathedral’s Alex Hillesheim takes a shot between Mason Cox (23) and Jakin Anderson of Minnesota Valley Lutheran during the first half Monday at CHS. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

NEW ULM — Jon Zinniel’s triple-double helped carry New Ulm Cathedral to a win on Monday night as the Greyhounds took down Minnesota Valley Lutheran 77-60 in Tomahawk Conference boys’ basketball action.

Zinniel had 21 points, ten rebounds and ten blocks.

With enough blocks to almost build a house, Zinniel said that he was happy to get the triple-double but was more happy to pull off the big win.

“A lot of the blocks just come off the help-side rotations, but I’m just happy we got the win,” Zinniel said. “It was a really good win against a solid MVL team, so I’m just glad it turned out the way it did.”

Cathedral coach Alan Woitas said he was glad to see a strong defense and a solid rebounding effort from his squad.

“Obviously, any time you can beat a really good team like MVL, you’re going to be happy,” Woitas said. “I thought our defensive energy was really good in the first half, we made everything difficult for them, and we were able to rebound with them for the most part. When we do those two things, we’re a really good team.”

Woitas also said that he was glad to see his guys knock down plenty of shots and move the ball around effectively.

After MVL tied things up at 8-8 on a bucket inside by Jace Marotz, Cathedral went on a 9-0 run to force an MVL timeout with 12:17 left in the first half. The Chargers answered out of the timeout with a 3-pointer by Jakin Anderson, but that 3 was countered by a 3 from Cathedral’s James Gillis right after.

Gillis finished with 13 points for the Greyhounds.

Back-to-back blocks by Zinniel led to a bucket inside on the other end by Alex Hillesheim and a 37-19 Greyhounds’ lead with less than five minutes left in the half. Hillesheim finished the night with 15 points.

A layup by Zinniel gave Cathedral a 20-point lead later on, and the Greyhounds led 44-25 at the half.

The second half started off with a 3-pointer by Cathedral’s Jacob Manderfeld, who had 15 points on the night. MVL went on a 7-0 run after the 3, though, to cut the deficit to 15.

The run was highlighted by a 3 from Jake Kettner.

MVL was able to cut the deficit down to 55-43 with less than 12 minutes to play after another 3 and a pair of free throws from Kettner, but it was the closest MVL got for the rest of the game.

Kettner led the attack for MVL, scoring 31 points. Jacob Kiecker had 8 points for the Chargers, while Matt Stein grabbed nine boards.

The Greyhounds shot 46 percent on the night and hit 41 percent from the 3-point line, while the Chargers finished the night shooting 34 percent from the field and 25 percent from 3.

“We didn’t stop their dribble penetration, we let them rebound too many,” MVL coach Craig Morgan said. “Offensive rebounds killed us. They had three, four shots at it, and the other night against Cedar Mountain, we only allowed I think three offensive rebounds. So we need to do a better job of defensive rebounds and then converting on the other end.”

The Chargers (7-4, 4-1) travel to play Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s next for a 7:30 p.m. conference game Friday. The Greyhounds (9-4, 4-1) host Cedar Mountain/Comfrey at 7:30 p.m. on Friday in conference action.