Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm High School’s Morgan Hulke is fouled by St. James Area’s Lunden Swanson on a reverse layup during a Big South Conference girls’ basketball game on Friday night at NUHS.

NEW ULM — With two minutes to go in the first half, the New Ulm Eagles girls’ basketball team was staring up at a 36-21 deficit to St. James Area in a Big South Conference basketball game.

But just over five minutes to go in the game, Morgan Hulke’s 3-point shot tied the game at 52-52 and with 21 seconds left in the contest, a Ramsey Hopp bucket pulled the Eagles to within 71-69.

But the Saints were able to hold off a furious New Ulm second half comeback to down the Eagles 74-69.

Madelyn Malmgren led the Saints (5-6, 2-3) with a game-high 27 points.

Daviney Dreckman led the Eagles (5-5, 1-2) with 18 points. Ramsey Hopp added 14, Morgan Hulke had 13 and Brooklyn Lewis chipped in 11.

“I thought that we did a much better job in the second half defensively and on the boards,” Eagles head coach Julie Rogers said. “We tried to get our turnovers down in the second half – we had some passes that were picked off in the first half – so we made some adjustments at halftime. But we are not shooting well.”

And it was a bad first half that really put the Eagles in a hole that they were able to get out of but were never able to get a lead.

New Um fell behind 20-18 early in the first half before the Saints went on a 16-3 run for that 36-21 lead that was fueled by poor 3-point shooting (4 for 18 in the first half) and 13 turnovers.

“If you miss shots, that is one thing, but if you do not get to shoot at all because you turn the ball over. That is a problem and something that we have to continue to work on,” Rogers said.

New Ulm came out in the second half cutting the lead to 42-39 off of a Hopp basket off of a Saints turnover.

The Eagles stayed close and used a 9-0 run on a conventional three-point play from Brooklyn Lewis and 3s from Mackenzie Enter and Morgan Hulke to tie the game at 52-52.

“Our youth was showing tonight early in the game but also that same youth that got us back into the game were young players (Hulke, Hopp, Enter, Dreckman) and an eighth-grader (Lewis),” Rogers said. “And they all have a high basketball IQ. They are good athletes, but right now they do not have the experience right now that their opponents do.

“We had a height mismatch, so because of that we have to shoot from the outside well and we did not do that tonight.”