Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm Cathedral’s Jon Zinniel (11) takes a shot between Lewis Pendleton (left) and Justin Lumbar (23) of Cedar Mountain Thursday at CHS.

NEW ULM — Cedar Mountain, sparked by Lewis Pendleton’s big Thursday-night performance, was able to come away with a 65-57 win over New Ulm Cathedral in Tomahawk Conference boys’ basketball action at Cathedral High School.

Pendleton set the tone for the Cougars (12-4, 6-3) early on and finished with 30 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists and three blocks.

Despite a low-scoring first half, Cedar Mountain got out to a hot start in the second half, which was enough to hold back the hungry Greyhounds (12-4, 7-4), who were ready to get back into the win column after suffering a 3-point loss at home to Springfield last Friday.

“We all came up big with some clutch shots,” Pendleton said of his team’s improved second half. “I was just feeling it the whole day, so I was just trying to get my shot in and luckily they were falling.”

Also for the Cougars, Devonte Charles added 10 points and five rebounds, while Tavi Nelson added 8 points and 11 rebounds and Justin Lumbar had 8 points and nine boards.

Cathedral was led by Chris Knowles with 16 points and five boards, while Alex Hillesheim had a 15-point, 13-rebound double-double. Jon Zinniel added 11 points, eight rebounds and three blocks for the Greyhounds, while Ethan Kirchberg scored 9 points.

The Cougars jumped out to a 7-2 lead early on, being led by back-to-back buckets in the paint from Pendleton and a 3-pointer by Chris Dow. Cathedral battled back to take a 10-9 lead after a 3 by Knowles off of an assist by Kyle Goblirsch from the low block.

That 10-9 lead, however, was the last time the Greyhounds led all game, suffering from cold shooting for most of the night.

“We obviously didn’t shoot the ball well tonight, but I don’t think we did a lot of things well,” Cathedral head coach Alan Woitas said. “We didn’t defend well, we didn’t rebound well, our energy level was pretty low tonight. You can blame it on not being in school for four days, but that’s everybody in the state right now. We’ve just got to be mentally tough and be ready to go next time out, [Friday night] against Wabasso [at Cathedral, 6 p.m.].”

After Cathedral took that 1-point lead, Cedar Mountain went on an 11-2 run to lead 20-12, led by a pair of 3s by Charles and a 3 by Pendleton. The Cougars led 26-21 at halftime.

Hillesheim cut the deficit to 2, 28-26, early on in the second half after a drive inside and a 3, but the Cougars hit back right away, taking their first double-digit lead moments later, 36-26, after a 3 by Pendleton. Pendleton’s hot shooting became contagious for the rest of his squad as the Cougars got a 13-2 run to lead 54-36 after a 3 by Andre Larsen.

During that run that gave the Cougars their largest lead of the night, Pendleton drained a pair of back-to-back 3s and a jumper from just inside the foul line.

A 3 by Knowles brought the Greyhounds back within 6, 63-57, with 25 seconds left, but it was too late for Cathedral.

“It’s a really big win,” Pendleton said. “It’s going to be a big confidence booster for us — we play Springfield [Friday night in Springfield]. And it’s going to be a big confidence booster for us going into playoffs.”