Staff photo by Jeremy Behnke New Ulm’s Madeline Backer drives to the basket as teammate Daviney Dreckman (1) sets a screen on Mankato West’s Malani Schoper during Tuesday’s Section 2AAA playoff game at Mankato West.

MANKATO — All season long, the New Ulm girls’ basketball team has been competitive.

But a mixture of youth and injuries has been tough to overcome at times despite a 12-13 regular season record.

On Tuesday, with no pressure whatsoever, the seventh-seeded Eagles displayed patience beyond their years in a 78-73 Section 2AAA girls’ basketball win victory over No. 2 seed Mankato West.

New Ulm (13-13) moved the ball around well and put on one of its better defensive games of the season. The Eagles, who were undersized compared to the Scarlets, didn’t seem to care as their hustle led to some late offensive rebounds that helped milk the clock.

New Ulm’s passing in the second half opened up the shots from outside. The Eagles hit eight 3-pointers in the second half.

Morgan Hulke led the Eagles with 21 points, 10 in the second half. Daviney Dreckman finished with 14 points, 10 of them coming in the second half. Brooklyn Lewis also scored 14 points and Kirsten Dennis finished with 12 points.

“It was just go out there and have fun, we really had no pressure on us, so we really just wanted to attack, play some good ‘D’,” Dennis said. “We were just looking to come out here and upset them and that’s exactly what we did.”

The Eagles hit seven 3-pointers in the second half, including four Lewis, just an eighth-grader. They finished with 11 shots from beyond the arc in the game.

The Eagles were able to match the efforts of the Scarlets and then some. West’s Teresa Kiewiet had a game-high 39 points and was a mismatch for most of the game. Malani Schoper scored 18 for West.

“That has been higher than normal, we shot the ball really well tonight so I’m really proud of that,” Dennis said.

While the game was back-and-forth in the first half, New Ulm grabbed the momentum going into the break. New Ulm trailed 21-13 after Schoper hit a basket with about 5 minutes left in the first half, but the Eagles slowly cut into the lead.

Ramsey Hopp gave New Ulm a 29-28 lead on a 3-pointer with 1:52 left in the half and a 3 from Hulke with 52 seconds left sent New Ulm into halftime with a 32-30 lead.

At that point, it seemed like West was in shock.

“I think the thing that’s plagued us a little bit this year is that we turn the ball over and then don’t hit the 3,” New Ulm coach Julie Rogers said. “Tonight we didn’t turn it over, we did a nice job of controlling the tempo and were patient on offense. And yeah, we hit the 3s and we played some really good defense.”

The game stayed close for most of the second half, but the Eagles pulled away late thanks to a Hulke 3 to make it 54-48 with 10:28. A 3 from Lewis put New Ulm up 59-52 with 7:20 left, and later, Hulke and Lewis hit back-to-back 3s to give the Eagles an 67-56 lead.

Dreckman’s 3 late put the Eagles up 73-63 and New Ulm hung on with free throws at the end.

New Ulm is at Marshall on Saturday. Marshall, the No. 3 seed, defeated Jordan 48-39 on Tuesday.