File photo by Steve Muscatello Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Maddie Spurgin takes a shot during a home game this season.

MORGAN — No. 4-seeded Cedar Mountain/Comfrey held off a relentless Minnesota Valley Lutheran squad when it mattered the most on Tuesday night, winning 64-58 to advance in the Section 2A North Subsection girls’ basketball playoffs.

MVL, the No. 5 seed, traded buckets and leads with CM/C almost the entire game. After back-to-back buckets inside by Taylor Rose put the Cougars up 54-51, the Chargers used a timeout with 5:29 left to play.

MVL’s Lauren Paulsen then knocked down a big 3 out of the timeout to tie the game up at 54. The Cougars relied on their rebounding down the stretch, though, grabbing several boards off of missed free throws for second looks at the rim. That helped them pull away with the win, as Erica Bock hit a pair of free throws with less than 35 seconds left to give the Cougars their final points.

Rose and Bock were key in the win, scoring CM/C’s final 10 points of the contest. Rose led CM/C with 25 points, six rebounds and three assists, while Bock had 18 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals.

“I thought we started out pretty nervous, and we weren’t really playing our team basketball,” Bock said. “Then at halftime, our coach said that it really was just do or die time and that we needed to show up. And that’s kind of what we did the second half.”

Abby Jemmings also had 9 points, 11 assists and six rebounds for the Cougars, while Lexi Toll was a force on defense with 10 blocks and five boards.

MVL was led by Emma Nelson, who finished with a 19-point, 14-rebound double-double. Haley Birkholz had 13 points for MVL, while Maddie Spurgin had 12 points and eight rebounds.

Paulsen had four assists and three steals for the Chargers, and Sarah Dinse chipped in 6 points.

MVL coach Rollin Timm said that he will miss his seniors, but he knows he has a good group of players coming up ready to roll next season. He said that he thought his team played well but just came up a little short.

“I think the girls worked hard throughout the season and the improvement showed,” Timm said. “Tonight’s game was a very well played high school basketball game. Our girls played very hard, played very smart and very well. Just not quite enough.”

After the Cougars got on the board first, MVL went on an 8-0 run to lead 8-2 and force an early CM/C timeout. A 3 by Jemmings gave the Cougars the lead back, 14-12.

Bock hit a 3 to give the Cougars their largest lead in the first half, 30-23, with around two minutes to play in the half. But the Chargers battled back to tie it up at halftime, 32-32, after a Paulsen to Spurgin layup.

The Cougars got the second half started with a 6-0 run, which forced an MVL timeout with 15:46 to go. Back-to-back buckets in the paint by MVL’s Emma and Abby Nelson gave the Chargers a 43-42 lead with more than 11 minutes to play.

After tying things up at 54, MVL was never able to take the lead back, and the Cougars advanced to meet No. 1-seeded Sleepy Eye at 6 p.m. on Friday at St. Peter High School.

“[Sleepy Eye] is a really good team and we’ve lost to them twice [this season], so we know we’ve got to bring our ‘A’ game — and they’re going to bring theirs,” Bock said. “So it’s really going to be a tough battle because we both really want it.”