“It’s huge,” Sleepy Eye’s Brayden Heiderscheidt said. “Losing Landon [Wendinger] from last year obviously is a big part. Coming into the new season we need new guys stepping up in new roles, and these past few games have definitely helped build up confidence in those other guys stepping up in those bigger roles.”

Sleepy Eye really took control in the second half, outscoring the Greyhounds 49-30 after the midpoint.

“We kind of beat ourselves up,” Cathedral head coach Zach Kaiser said. “I thought in the half court our defense was OK. Obviously we needed to stop Brayden Heiderscheidt and we had a gameplan coming in to try to pack the paint and try to stop the dribble penetration, and we did OK with that in the first half. We really just panicked on offense, turned the ball over and gave them too many fast break points. If we kept them in the half court we were doing OK, but our turnovers that led to easy buckets for them is what hurt us.”

Heiderscheidt led the Indians with 31 points, seven rebounds, six assists and five steals, while Eric Lozano had 15 points, six assists and three rebounds. Jaxon Heiderscheidt added 10 points.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm Cathedral’s Quinten Forst challenges Sleepy Eye’s Brayden Heiderscheidt (21) at the rim during a Tomahawk Division boys basketball game Thursday at Sleepy Eye High School.

Eli Anderson scored 31 points for the Greyhounds while adding 10 rebounds and four assists. Quinten Forst had 14 points and 11 rebounds.

Both offenses started out slowly on the night, with Sleepy Eye holding a 10-8 lead early. But a 3-pointer by Sleepy Eye’s Jony Flores got the shooting going for Sleepy Eye, and the Indians stayed hot for the remainder of the game.

“I’m confident in my guys that they’re going to make that shot,” Brayden Heiderscheidt said. “Any day of the week. Obviously we had some adversity in the beginning, but just the way we battled against it, I’m really proud of all my guys.”

Braylon Nelson scored 4 points in a matter of seconds on a layup and a lot 2-pointer off of a turnover to make it a 17-10 game, Sleepy Eye went on a 16-0 run with Lozano making two 3-pointers and Brayden Heiderscheidt capping off the run with another 3 for a 33-12 lead. Cathedral got back on the board with a transition layup from Anderson, and Cathedral started to push back into the lead, going on a 10-2 run with Anderson scoring 7 more.

“We were taking care of the basketball,” Kaiser said. “During that time we just slowed ourselves down. Really that’s all we talked about in the first two timeouts in the fist half, is we need to slow down, take a breath and let the game come to us. For that little stretch there where we made a comeback, we were doing that.”

Cathedral cut the lead down to 40-32 on a layup from Forst, but Lozano put Sleepy Eye back in command with a pair of 3s before halftime.

Forst started out the second half with a layup, but Sleepy Eye got a layup from Robert Romberg and a 3-pointer from Brayden Heiderscheidt for a 51-34 lead. Cathedral made it a 57-40 game with a layup from Anderson, and Cathedral responded with a 15-2 run, kick-started with a transition layup from Jaxon Heiderscheidt and finished off by a floater from Brayden Heiderscheidt to put the Indians up 72-42. Anderson scored 8 to help cut the lead to 77-51, but reserves entered the game with 6:50 to play.

Sleepy Eye improves to 2-0 and looks to continue to push after a strong start.

“Just keep working hard in practice and coming ready to work every single day,” Brayden Heiderscheidt said. “Game in and game out.”

The Indians host Lester Prairie on Tuesday. Cathedral drops to 0-2 and will play at Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s on Monday.