Staff photo by Jeremy Behnke New Ulm Cathedral’s Jenna Hotovec drives between Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Ella Mullenbach (30) and Abbie Riederer (4) during Thursday’s game at Cathedral High School.

NEW ULM — While New Ulm Cathedral had hopes of keeping Thursday’s game against cross-town rival Minnesota Valley Lutheran close, the Chargers, who are in second place in the Tomahawk Conference, had other ideas.

MVL (16-4, 12-1) jumped out to an early 8-0 lead and that helped the Chargers run away with a 79-37 victory over the Greyhounds at New Ulm Cathedral High School.

Abbie Riederer led the Chargers with 21 points, six rebounds and six steals. Kaylee Hunter had 12 points and Ella Schlei had eight rebounds.

Jenna Hotovec scored 21 points for the Greyhounds and Maddie Gilles finished with 11 points.

The Chargers grabbed that early 8-0 lead, but the Greyhounds fought back and trailed 15-7 midway through the first half.

At that point, the Chargers went on a 28-0 run to go up 43-7. The run ended on a 3-pointer by Cathedral’s Maddie Gilles with 4:54 left in the half and it consumed more than 6 minutes of the game clock.

The Greyhounds outscored the Chargers 13-9 the rest of the way in the first half and MVL led 52-23 at halftime.

The Greyhounds saw their overall record slip to 3-14. They remain winless in the Tomahawk at 0-13 and they host Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop at 4 p.m. on Friday. Cathedral has a busy week next week with four games on the schedule.

MVL is at Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman/Martin Luther on Monday, hosts Nicollet on Tuesday and Sleepy Eye next Friday and at Waterville-Elysian-Morristown on Saturday, Feb. 11.