Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Sibley East’s Evan Pautsch battles Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Ben Halvorson (14) for a loose ball during a Section 2AA boys basketball playoff game at MVL High School on Tuesday night.

NEW ULM — Basketball is a game of runs.

Tuesday night in their Section 2AA North playoff game against Sibley East, the Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers used a 17-4 run to close out the first half and then continued that with a 14-0 run to start the second half to go on to a 78-63 win over the Wolverines.

It was also the last basketball game in MVL’s current gym as the Chargers begin play in a new facility next season.

Kyler Flunker led the Chargers with 25 points, with Zander Jacobson adding 16 and Aaron Black 14.

Black and Jacobson each brought down 16 rebounds.

Jacobson left the game midway through the second half with a lower leg injury.

Joseph Ballalatak led the Wolverines with 16 points, including his 1,000th career point. Riley Bussler added 13 for the Wolverines, who see their season end at 5-22.

The second-seeded Chargers, now 22-5, square off against third-seeded Glencoe-Silver Lake Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at New Prague High School.

“Our guys battled back,” Chargers head coach Craig Morgan said. “We played much better after the first half. We were sloppy [early] in the first half and did not adjust very well on what we needed to do, but once we did, things worked out.”

The Wolverines, who had lost to the Chargers 80-40 in the first game of the year this season, caught the Chargers off guard as they took a 19-11 lead on a Ballalatak 3, then increased that to a 27-14 lead when Will Feterl canned a 3.

A Mason Bussler 3 saw the Wolverines hold a 30-20 lead before Morgan called a timeout.

Whatever Morgan said kicked in.

Ben Pearson canned a jumper before Jacobson sank back-to-back baskets as MVL pulled to within 31-29. A Jacobson putback basket tied the game at 31-all at halftime.

The Chargers came out to start the second half by scoring the first 14 points, 9 of those points coming off of Wolverines turnovers, capped by a 3 from Flunker that had the Chargers ahead 45-31.

“We played much better defense — our defense is our offense,” Morgan said. “That ended up being a key for us.”

The Chargers built a 57-41 lead off of a two baskets from Black.

“We got the ball inside to Aaron and Zander,” Morgan said. “And we forced turnovers.”

Two more baskets courtesy of Jacobson saw the Chargers holding a 68-52 lead.

Morgan said that coming into this game, he was a little concerned about the game.

“You are a higher seed and you are expected to win.” he said. “But on any given night anybody can win. They had a real good game plan coming in.”