The New Ulm Eagles boys basketball team picked up a big early-season road win Friday with an 86-71 win at Waseca in a Big South Conference game.

“It was a fast-paced game,” New Ulm first year head coach Michael Poncelet said. “Waseca has an unbelievable scorer in Deron Russell who put up 44 [points], but we played really well and shot well. We were finally able to get out and run some of our transition and it was pretty effective.”

Levi Hopp led the Eagles offense with 33 points with Mitchell Hopp added 13 with both Zach Hubbard and Jayden Broste each scoring 9 points with Owen Castleman adding 8 points.

“We were able to create turnovers — we controlled the pace the entire game,” Poncelet said.” In our game with Marshall, they controlled the pace the whole game. We played so slow and I do not think we are particularly good playing slow. But Friday we played really fast and that allowed us to get good open looks and we got to the rim a lot more. In our Marshall game we were settling for outside shots because it was walk the ball up and try and play against their defense. We were not getting penetration into the paint.”

It was also a game where the Eagles led from the opening tip.

“We went up 12-2 and they clawed their way back in the second half when they got within 6 points,” Poncelet said. “But we would stretch it out to a 20 point lead — we pretty much dominated the whole game.

“We gave up 71 points, but at the pace that we played at we had a ton of baskets in transition.”

The Eagles, who host TCU Tuesday night, are still a work in progress.

“I have a very structured fast-break and they are still learning that structure,” Poncelet said. “Defensively what I want to do is different from what they know. I am really focused on loading up on the ball and creating turnovers that way — that is still a work in progress. If we get out of position we are good at recovering. The win Friday was big for us because historically of what Waseca has been the last few years. We knew that we were better than we were in the Marshall game and this game we did that.”

CHARGERS EARN BIG WIN

The Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers boys basketball team also got a big win Friday when they topped Springfield 65-54.

“I thought that the win was a group effort.” Chargers head coach Kory Kettner said. “I thought that Luke Merseth did a good job inside battling — Pierson Brau hit some big shots and Trace Gunderson hit some big ones as did Blake Sexton.

“When the ball moves, good things happen for everybody,” added Kettner, whose team plays at New Ulm Cathedral on Thursday. “It was not perfect, but the ball moved well enough. We were so much better defensively, but we had some lapses — we need to play with our feet all of the time — we can’t play with our hands. We get lost when we do that. We need to stay down, stay disciplined and competing on every possession.”

GREYHOUNDS

INEXPERIENCED TEAM

New Ulm Cathedral head boys basketball coach Zach Kaiser said that his team is looking like they do not have a lot of varsity experience.

“Turnovers have hurt us and that is due to catching up to the speed of varsity basketball,” he said. “We are competing every game — we have been in both of our games — and we have had pretty good runs in games where we have been down by double-digits. We made a run in the Sleepy Eye game where we were down 33-12 and we got it back to within 8 points. We were down to Sibley East and got that back down to 10 points but could not get closer, so we are competing every game but we are hurting ourselves with turnovers and decision-making and that comes with experience.”

The Greyhounds, who played at Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s Monday night, have been guilty of what Kaiser calls mental turnovers.

“When we have opportunities we are not seeing them quick enough and then we hesitate to take advantage of them that we do have,” he said. “When we do get pressured or trapped, I need to do a better job of directing, but also part of being a varsity basketball player is being able to recognize that by himself and make adjustments on the floor.”

Kaiser said that Eli Anderson, the lone returning starter for the Greyhounds, has taken everything in stride.

“He is our leader in practices and games — he is our captain for a reason. He has scored 28 and 31 points in our [first two] games,” Kaiser said. “We want him to score, and if he is scoring 30 within the flow of the offense on a game-by-game basis we are OK with that, but we do not all of that to fall on his shoulders.”

Kaiser said that Quinten Forst has become the Greyhounds second-leading scorer.

“For his first year on the varsity he has done a real nice job — he provides some scoring punch and he has rebounded well — and he is our other captain,” Kaiser said. “His leadership has really risen up to a level we knew he was capable of. We are proud to have him as our other captain.”

The Greyhounds host MVL Thursday night at 7:30.