Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Martin Luther College’s Micah Kieselhorst puts up a shot against Macalester College’s Shane Anderson on Tuesday night in a UMAC men’s basketball game at MLC.

NEW ULM — Martin Luther College’s strong first-half efforts on defense against Macalester College on Tuesday night gave the Knights a 33-29 lead at halftime.

Unfortunately for MLC, that strong defensive effort let up in the second half as the Scots battled back to top the Knights 73-58 in Upper Midwest Athletic Conference men’s basketball action at MLC.

The Knights shot just 37.1% from the field in the first half, but they also held the Scots to 34.4% shooting in the first half as well. The Scots were able to get more open looks in the second half, however, outshooting the Knights 48.4% to 37.5% in the second half.

“We played with great intensity in the first half,” MLC head coach Greg Holzhueter said. “We made them uncomfortable with the defensive pressure we put on and we didn’t give them a lot of clean looks. We did a great job boxing out, I think they only had one offensive rebound in the first half. So even though we didn’t hit a lot of shots in the first half, we had a 4-point lead because we had such good defense.

“The challenge at the level of college basketball is you have to play that way for 40 minutes if you want to earn a win. So we just have to sustain the defensive intensity that we had in the first half and I think our guys are going to see the results and will get there.”

The Knights outrebounded the Scots 27-17 in the first half but ended the game with just a 40-39 lead on the boards.

In the first half, a half that MLC never trailed in, the Knights jumped out to a 15-8 lead after a 3 by Micah Kieselhorst with 12:53 on the clock. A pair of free throws by Caleb Williams minutes later tied the game at 18-all before the Knights went on an 8-0 run to lead 26-18, getting a 3 from Nathan Miller to end the run.

The Scots got the last shot of the half to fall at the buzzer on a jumper from Williams and trailed MLC 33-29 at halftime.

A 3 by Coby Gold and a putback bucket inside by Robert Grace IV quickly gave the Scots a 34-33 lead to start the second half. The Knights fell behind by 3 minutes later before a fast-break basket by Isaiah Loersch had them down 36-35. That was the closest the Knights got after that, however, as the Scots gradually increased their lead to double digits.

The Scots took a 15-point lead, their largest lead of the night, in the final two minutes.

The Scots also hit four more 3s in the second half than the Knights, who finished with just one 3 in the second half and hit seven 3s total.

Joseph Hirsch led the Knights with 11 points, seven rebounds and four assists, while Ezra Blumer had 10 points. Jack Heichelbech had 9 points and nine boards also for MLC.

The Scots were led by Gold’s 24 points, while Williams had 16 and Shane Anderson added 10.

MLC dropped to 0-3 to start the season with the loss, while Macalester improved to 2-0.

MLC is at Concordia College on Saturday.