Staff photo by Steve Muscatello Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Mason Cox (23) puts up a shot despite defensive pressure from a Tri-City defender during Section 2AA first round playoff action Saturday at MVL.

NEW ULM — Despite playing their last game a week ago, the Minnesota Valley Lutheran boys’ basketball team didn’t appear to have any rust as it eliminated Tri City United 69-39 in the Section 2AA boys’ basketball playoffs on Saturday.

The Chargers, who played last Saturday against Martin County West, raced out to an 18-0 run to start the game and it was never close.

The No. 1-seeded Chargers will now play No. 4 seed Belle Plaine at 6 p.m. on Thursday at New Prague High School for the North Subsection semifinals. Belle Plaine topped Sibley East 55-45 on Saturday.

“It helped the guys get off on a good track,” MVL coach Craig Morgan said. “Their defense started things and they pushed the ball and shared the ball really well. It was a really nice run against a team that’s struggling.”

A pair of baskets from Mason Cox and two more baskets from Jace Marotz had the Chargers up 9-0 less than 3 minutes into the game. The Chargers kept their foot on the gas, going up 18-0 on a Marotz 3-pointer.

TCU finally got on the board with 12:29 left in the first half on a free throw from Adam Henze.

Later, a basket from Dunwa Omot saw the Chargers go up 27-3 and a 3-pointe from Spencer Burden saw them go up 34-8. MVL led 45-15 at halftime.

The Chargers were able to rest their starters for much of the second half and that could be beneficial with some tough teams in Section 2AA coming up.

“It was a long stretch from the game with Martin County West to tonight, and even with our scrimmage in there,” Morgan said. “Everyone was getting antsy, so we’ll get back into a little groove and we’ll practice for three days before we play again.”

The Chargers had a balanced scoring attack and were led by Kyreis Harrison, sho scored 13 points, had seven rebounds and five assists. Marotz scored 12 points and Cox and Omot each finished with 9 points. Omot also had seven rebounds.

Collin Barrett led Central with 11 points. Jonathan Hurd and Fakourou Tandia had 9 points apiece.