Staff photo by Travis Rosenau The Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart Mustangs’ Rachel Kottke (1) battles New Ulm Cathedral’s Jenna Hotovec for a loose ball during a Tomahawk Conference girls basketball game at Cathedral High School on Saturday.

NEW ULM — Behind an assertive defensive effort, Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart was too much for New Ulm Cathedral to overcome as the Mustangs raced to a 78-37 win in a Tomahawk Conference girls basketball game on Saturday afternoon at Cathedral High School.

The Mustangs were led by Lily Hubin’s 23 points, while Rachel Kottke had 20 points, 10 steals and six rebounds and Jamie Novotny had 10 points and 11 rebounds. Kristi Kottke added 9 points, 13 rebounds, seven steals and six assists also for the Mustangs.

Jenna Hotovec paced the Greyhounds with 12 points, all on 3-pointers, while Ashlyn Hillesheim scored 6 points and had three assists off the bench.

Despite the Greyhounds striking first on a Hotovec 3, BLHS scored the next four baskets in large part due to takeaways on a full-court press. Three of those baskets came off the hands of Rachel Kottke.

The Mustangs ended the game with 26 steals.

A stepback 3 by Maddie Gilles had the Greyhounds down 8-6, but that was promptly answered with an 8-0 run to put the Mustangs up 16-6.

Gilles and Shay Wilfahrt added a free throw each to end the BLHS run, but it was far from the last big run the Mustangs got in the game. After that, buckets in the paint by Hubin and Ellaina Bergstrom ignited a 19-0 Mustangs run that had them up 35-9 late in the half.

Olivia Macho hit a pair of bonus free throws for the Greyhounds to end the Mustangs’ run, but Hubin hit a 3 and scored on a layup to put BLHS up 40-11 at halftime.

Those two buckets by Hubin ended up turning into a 17-0 run overall and 52-11 lead in the second half before Hillesheim drove the baseline with 13:02 left to play and scored the first Cathedral field goal since Gilles’ early 3.

A 10-0 run later in the half put the Mustangs up 62-13 before a 3 by Cathedral’s Jayde Altermatt ended the run.

Hotovec hit three consecutive 3s for the Greyhounds down the stretch to have her team down 75-31, but the damage was done at that point as the Mustangs rolled to victory.

BLHS led by as much as 53.

BLHS (3-2, 2-1) hosts Springfield on Jan. 2, while Cathedral (3-4, 1-1) is at Cleveland for a nonconference game Tuesday night.