NEW ULM — Maybe it was a letdown from defeating Marshall last week to win the Big South Conference basketball championship.

Or it may have been the six days off since that game.

But after asking New Ulm head boys’ basketball coach Matt Dennis, he was quick with an answer.

“Jackson came to play — they played extremely hard and extremely well,” he said. “They came ready to play.”

The Huskies grabbed a 52-50 lead with 13 minutes left in the game and held that lead as they downed the Eagles 77-75 Thursday night in a Big South Conference game.

Roman Voss led Jackson County Central (11-15, 6-7) with 23 points.

Colton Benson led New Ulm (17-6, 9-2) with 24 points. Charlie Osborne added 21 points and Zander Fischer tossed in 10.

Dennis said that as far as a letdown, it was letdown defensively for his team.

“This was not the same team that we know that we can be defensively,” he said. “We got beat on plays that we normally do not get beat on — we did not close out on shooters and part of that was because we were getting beat on drives. Jackson did a lot of things well tonight.”

The Eagles, who host Worthington next Monday, held a 39-38 halftime lead on a Benson free throw to close out the first half.

But Jackson kept the Eagles on their heels in the second half as New Ulm could not get key defensive stops when the needed them.

Add into that a cold shooting second half that saw the Eagles make only 7 of 25 shots from the field.

“When we put up 75 points, we have to win,” Dennis said. “Our defense has to be solid enough to hold the fort when we put up 75 points. Yeah, we missed some shots but they did, too.”

New Ulm cut the lead to 75-74 on two Charlie Osborne free throws with 26 seconds left in the game, but Voss made two free throws with 23 seconds for a 77-74 lead before Benson sank a free throw with five seconds left in the game.

As far as seedings for playoffs, Dennis said that the Eagles need to take it one game at a time.

“It is going to be tough to be a three seed at this point — which was a goal — so we are going to take it one game at a time.”