File photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm Cathedral’s Carter Haala dribbles the ball during a home boys basketball game at Cathedral High School on Dec. 17.

NEW ULM — With seven minutes left in the first half, New Ulm Cathedral’s Jevan Wilfahrt and Ben Blomberg each hit a basket to pull the Greyhounds into an 18-18 tie with Norwood Young America.

But the Raiders countered that with a 15-2 run to take 33-20 lead and went on to down the Greyhounds 65-44 Monday in a nonconference game.

Braden O’Neil led the Raiders (6-1) with 19 points.

Jevan Wilfahrt paced Cathedral (1-4) with 18 points.

“I thought that our kids played with really good effort tonight,” Cathedral coach Alan Woitas said. “We defended really well — that is a good basketball team and are going to win a lot of games this year. We did a good job of controlling their big man (Braden O’Neill), but we did not make a lot of shots. We had a poor shooting night tonight but we stepped it up defensively.

“And we did a nice job of contesting a lot of their shots. We have not done that this season, so hopefully we can build off of that end of the floor.”

Woitas said that that first-half spurt by the Raiders put the Greyhounds behind the eight-ball.

“They made some shots and had some role players step up to contribute to that run.”

Down 38-25 at halftime, Cathedral made a run at the Raiders using a Wilfahrt 3, followed by a short jump shot and a Miles Boesch free throw to cut the lead to 46-38 with 8:34 left in the game.

But a conventional 3-point basket from Alden Jensen paired with 3s from O’Neil and Jensen and a Jake Druley basket off of turnover moved the Raiders to a 57-38 lead with four minutes left in the game.

Despite the loss, Woitas felt that this was his teams best performance of the year.

“We have a road game Thursday at Mankato Loyola — weather permitting — and we can continue to build for the second half of the season,” Woitas said.