Photo by Brady Dennis Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Trace Gunderson (13) goes up for a layup on Thursday in a nonconference boys basketball game against New Ulm Cathedral at Cathedral High School.

NEW ULM — Minnesota Valley Lutheran used a balanced scoring attack and a 22-10 run to close out the game as the Chargers moved to 2-1 in the season with a 67-45 win over New Ulm Cathedral Thursday night in a nonconference boys basketball game.

Pierson Brau led the Chargers with 15 points, with Luke Merseth adding 14 and Owen Birkholz 11.

Eli Anderson paced the Greyhounds (0-4) with a game-high 26 points.

“I thought that Zach ([Kaiser, Cathedral head coach] had his boys ready to play,” Chargers head coach Kory Kettner said. “They came out — they competed — and Eli Anderson was terrific in the first half. We had our hands full with him.”

Anderson scored 16 of the Greyhounds’ 23 first-half points.

“This was the best full game that we have played all year,” Kaiser said. “I was happy with our intensity, energy and effort. MVL is a good team and well-coached. We had a very fundamental week of practice as we are trying to simplify things and let these guys catch up to the speed of a varsity game.”

The Chargers, who play at Waseca on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. raced to a 21-7 lead on two baskets from Brau and a Wyatt Feucht rebound basket.

That lead expanded to 30-14 on a Merseth basket before Anderson drilled a 3 for 30-17 lead, with Anderson scoring 12 of those points.

Leading 36-23 at halftime, the Chargers increased their lead to 45-26 before Anderson sank two jumpers and buried a 3 to cut the lead to 45-33.

A 3 from Birkholz sparked a 18-5 run for the Chargers, who took a 63-38 lead with six minutes left in the game.

“I thought that we were much better in the second half,” Kettner said. “Blake Sexton did a real good job defensively for us. He kind of changed the tone of the game and Luke Merseth inside was a handful for them — he was able to get some finishes and Blake was the player of the game for us — those guys trying to shoot over his length was a problem.”

Kaiser said that the overall he was pleased with the improvement.

“We gave up 67 points when we have been giving up 90 and 93 in our last two games,” Kaiser said. “It was a big step in the right direction because we were out-sized — they started three 6-foot-5 guys and our tallest player is 6-foot-3. We had guards guarding 6-foot-5 guys.”

Cathedral is at Lester Prairie Tuesday night.