Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Ramsey Hopp gives fives to teammate Maddie Backer (4) after Backer converted an and-one during the second half of Friday night’s Big South Conference girls basketball game against St. Peter at New Ulm High School.

NEW ULM — New Ulm didn’t see immediate success from its full-court press on Friday night.

The Eagles sure reaped the benefits from it in the second half, however.

Wearing the St. Peter Saints down with the press in the second half, the Eagles turned multiple takeaways into a quick 14-0 run to help run away with a 74-47 win in a Big South Conference girls basketball game.

Maddie Backer led the Eagles in the win with 17 points, while Ramsey Hopp had 15 points and seven rebounds. Maggie Joyce added 14 points, while Brooklyn Lewis had 13 points and Morgan Hulke had 9 points.

The Eagles, who moved to 11-6 overall and 7-3 in the conference with the win, held a slim 29-28 lead at halftime.

They looked like a new team in the second half.

Hopp credited the Eagles’ turnaround in the second half to being more vocal.

“I think our communication stepped up a lot in the second half,” Hopp said. “It was really loud in here, so it was hard to hear each other, so just knowing that we have to be loud.”

The Saints (9-8, 5-3) were led by Annika Southworth’s 16 points, while Kylie Southworth had 11. The Eagles’ defense did a good job of shutting down most of St. Peter’s players on offense in the second half and Annika Southworth was no exception as she had 12 points in the first half and was held to 4 in the second half.

“I think we changed a little bit of the way we were handling when they were screening Annika Southworth, so we changed how we were going to help Brooklyn or Maddie or whoever was guarding her so that she couldn’t get that shot off,” Eagles head coach Julie Rogers said. “The other thing is because we could play a physical full-court game the entire first half and come out and still have enough legs to do that same kind of thing the second half. I think we absolutely wore them down.”

After a scoreless first two minutes of play, Hopp and Backer hit 3s to put New Ulm 6-0. Annika Southworth hit a 3 to put the Saints on the board, but Backer drained another 3 to answer.

Audrey Menning gave the Saints their first lead of the game, 10-9, on a 3-pointer, but Backer hit her third and final 3 of the game to put New Ulm back in front 12-10. The Saints ended up getting the lead back on a 3 from Nora Whipps and added another 3 from Annika Southworth to lead 18-14.

That 4-point lead ended up being the largest lead the Saints got in the game.

The Eagles finished the half strong but still only managed to lead by 1 at the break.

After a back-and-forth start to the second half, the Eagles got their press and fast break working so well that it helped ignite a 14-0 run for a 53-34 lead. Near the end of the run, the Eagles got a steal from Backer, who dished it to Hopp, who then found Lewis inside for a bucket. Less than five seconds later, Lewis got a steal of her own and found Backer for an easy 2 inside and a 48-34 lead. Hopp got the final points of the run on a 3 and Annika Southworth stopped it on the other end with a layup.

“I think it’s what we expected,” Hopp said of her team’s turnaround. “In the second half we just really kept tiring them out with our defense.”

With less than eight minutes to play, Backer converted an and-one for a 62-41 Eagles lead. The Eagles got their largest lead of the night in the closing minutes on a Lewis 3 that put her team up 71-45.

The Eagles are at Jordan for a nonconference game on Thursday night before returning home Friday to host a special girls-boys doubleheader Cancer Awareness Night. The girls team will play at 6 p.m., while the boys follow with an 8 p.m. tip-off.