Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm Cathedral forward Jon Zinniel (11) shoots the ball between Dumwa Omot (10) and Jacob Norris (5) of Minnesota Valley Lutheran Friday at CHS.

NEW ULM — It may well be an “Instant Classic” in the boys’ basketball rivalry between Minnesota Valley Lutheran and New Ulm Cathedral.

And it took two overtimes to produce it.

With 28 seconds left in the second overtime, Mason Cox scored from the baseline to give MVL a 61-59 lead.

Cathedral’s Chris Knowles made the first of two free throws to cut the lead to 61-60 with 2 seconds left before the Chargers’ Jacob Norris sank a a free throw with .5 left as MVL downed the Greyhounds 62-60 Friday in the battle for the Tomahawk Conference lead.

Dunwa Omot led the Chargers (21-1, 13-1) with 21 points. Omot also scored his career 1,000 point and added five steals.

Omot nailed his 1,000 career point at the 13:37 mark of the second half to become the 21st MVL player to break that mark and the second Charger to do that this season. Emma Nelson did it earlier.

Jace Marotz added 11 points and seven rebounds. Cox hauled down 10 rebounds.

Chris Knowles led Cathedral (19-2, 12-2) with a game-high 27 points. Jon Zinniel tossed in 16 points, with James Gillis finishing with 10 points. Chris Knowles and Zinniel each had nine rebounds.

“Both teams play the game well,” Cathedral coach Alan Woitas said. “Both teams play the game the right way and have a lot of respect for each other. Credit to their kids — they got that one extra possession. But our kids really battled.”

MVL head coach Craig Morgan said that things could have gone either way.

“This could have been anyone’s game,” Morgan said. “Cathedral really played hard.”

And it took 44 minutes to determine a winner.

MVL held a 48-45 lead wth 6:29 left in regulation on a Kyreis Harrison basket. But Cathedral came back to tie the game 48-48 on two free throws by Chris Knowles. Jace Marotz gave MVL a 50-48 lead late before two Chris Knowles’ free throws sent the game into the first overtime.

Omot scored 4 of the Chargers’ 5 points in the first overtime and MVL had a 55-52 lead before Zinniel canned a tying 3 with 25 seconds left to send both teams into a second extra session and setting the stage for the Chargers’ second win of the year over Cathedral.

Omot said that the win was big for the Chargers who host Springfield Tuesday in another big conference test.

“Tuesday will probably be for the conference championship.” he said. “We lost to them earlier so we have to bring our “A” game. “

And the 1,000 carer points was nice especially with the win.

“I knew I was close to (1,000 points), but that was not my main focus,” Omot said. “My main focus was coming here to win in a tough place to play.”