Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm senior Cole Rhode takes a shot over Dominic Bargfrede (22) of Jackson County Central Thursday at New Ulm High School.

NEW ULM — Normally when you score 86 points in a high school basketball game you are celebrating a win.

Thursday night the New Ulm Eagles boys’ basketball team scored 86 points — their second most in a game this season — and came away with a loss.

Rudy Voss scored a game-high 40 points for Jackson County Central as the Huskies powered by the Eagles 101-86 in a nonconference game.

Reece Melby led New Ulm with 31 points with Charlie Osborne scoring 20 and Cole Rhode 15.

“When you score 86 points and lose it is tough,” New Ulm coach Matt Dennis said as his team ended their regular season with a 7-17 record. “I thought that defensively we had the effort but credit their players. Rudy Voss is a game changer and that is an understatement — he can flat out score.”

Voss scored 18 of his points in the first half before capping off his resume with 22 in the second half.

While Voss and the Huskies ended up with 49 points in the first half, the Eagles totaled 34 with Melby keeping in the game in the first 18 minutes with 23 of the 34 points.

“He (Melby) kept us in the game — period,” Dennis said. “If he was not knocking down shots — doing that as a senior on Senior Night here — the game is laughable at halftime. He kept us in the game and I think that we got a little spoiled by that and we started watching him on offense and that was when the game got away from us.”

The Eagles got as close as 68-58 in the second half on an Isaiah Miller 3-pointer.

But Voss canned two, 3-pointers and then sank an inside basket for a 76-60 lead.

JCC upped their lead to 87-68 on two free throws from Jack Brinkman and then pulled away and took a 93-75 lead on two Voss free throws.

“We wanted to slow them down,” Dennis said. “But when we did this, they did that — punch and counter-punch. We got great shots and that is why we scored 86 points. We scored 86 points and lose it is hard.”