Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Theodore Giefer lays down a sacrifice bunt during the Chargers’ win against Martin County West Tuesday at Mueller Park in New Ulm.

NEW ULM — It was the kind of performance that the Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers needed going into the Section 2A playoffs.

MVL erased a 1-0 Martin County West lead with four runs in the bottom of the third as the Chargers ended their regular season with a 4-1 win over the Mavericks Tuesday afternoon at Mueller Park in a nonconference game.

Jace Marotz, the second of three pitchers used by MVL in the game, got the win.

Matt Reiger started for the Chargers (5-10) and went the first three innings and allowed one run while fanning three. Marotz pitched two innings and allowed just one hit. Lefthander Teddy Giefer pitched the final two innings.

Wyatt Geistfeld took the loss for Martin County West (5-9). He was charged with four runs in 2 1/3 innings.

The Chargers now move on to the Section 2A tournament on Thursday when MVL, seeded 11th, plays sixth-seeded Mankato Loyola (15-3) 7 p.m. at Mankato East.

And while MVL head coach John Gunderson was happy with the pitching performances of his three sophomores in the game, he may have been even happier with his defense that had no errors in the game and turned two double plays in the win.

“This was a great game for us to have right before playoffs,” Gunderson said. “We always knew we had a good defense here and finally we showed it.”

And the two double plays by MVL averted a potential big inning in the second when it held MCW to just its one run.

With runners on second and third and one out in the sixth, the Mavericks’ Hans Kellam lofted a fly ball to left fielder Franklin Selvey, whose throw to catcher Mason Cox nailed Kooper Janssen at home when he tagged and tried to score.

Down 1-0 in the third, MVL manufactured four runs.

Leyton Brau singled and went to second on a Giefer sacrifice bunt. He scored on Jordan Fischer’s double.

Fischer took third on a wild pitch and trotted home on a Cox infield single. Zac Spears took over for Geistfeld and was greeted by a successful suicide squeeze bunt from Derek Weisensel. Cox came home on a Rieger single.

That 4-1 lead held up thanks to his three young pitchers.

“That was Matt’s first start for us,” Gunderson said. “We had to stay away from Jordan Fischer who is going to start for us Thursday. And we got good performances out of all three of them. We needed to be on a roll going into playoffs.This is a great win for us and we do feel good going into Thursday.”