“I just thought about all the hours of practice I put into shooting free throws,” Freier said. “And just pretended like it was practice, kept a level head and tried to put them in.”

Despite the loss, Cathedral still had something to celebrate as Shay Wilfahrt became the seventh Cathedral girls basketball player to score 1,000 career points with a bucket in the second half.

“It’s pretty cool,” Shay Wilfahrt said. “Not a lot of people get [1,000 points]. I kind of knew right away when I started playing when I was younger I wanted to get it and get better. I knew from the very beginning I wanted to get that achievement, so I started working right away.”

Freier led all scorers on the night with 24 points, along with five steals and five rebounds, while Olivia Hammer had 14 points, four steals and three rebounds for MVL. Violet Hammer added 10 points and seven rebounds and Ziva Zahrt had 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Olivia Hammer fades away from the block for a shot during a nonconference girls basketball game against New Ulm Cathedral Friday at Cathedral High School.

Jayde Altermatt led the Greyhounds with 18 points and six rebounds, while Shay Wilfahrt had 11 points and nine rebounds. Margo Finstad added 11 points and nine rebounds.

MVL led nearly the entire game, but Cathedral made comebacks in both the first and second halves to keep it close.

“I think it’s just the support of the team talking to each other,” Cathedral head coach Dave Wilfahrt said. “Saying, ‘Hey, lets keep going, next play.’ Try to just stay focused on that and not worry about too much else. Just keep playing hard.”

MVL head coach Craig Morgan said the team was able to recover in time to close out the game strong.

“We threw the ball away and we got a little lazy on our defense in the last eight to ten minutes,” Morgan said. “But down the stretch we hit our free throws. They fouled Avery, and for us it was the right person to put on the line.”

Olivia Hammer scored 6 of the first 8 points of the game to help MVL to an 8-0 lead, but Cathedral stormed back with a 9-0 run, with Finstad making a 3 and a layup for a 9-8 lead. MVL took the lead again with a layup through contact by Freier, and got out to a 21-11 advantage as Avery Hahn made a layup. Another 3-pointer from Finstad cut the lead to 21-14, an Cathedral trimmed the lead all the way down to 21-20 as Ashlyn Hillesheim made a 3-pointer. The Chargers steadied with a layup from Tori Ringen, then a pair of layups from Zahrt and Violet Hammer made it a 27-21 game. Altermatt made it a 1-point game again with a layup and a 3-pointer, but Hahn made a layup to make it 29-26 by halftime.

MVL came out of the break hot, going on a 21-2 run, with Freier making four 3-pointers during the stretch, to go up 50-28.

“Our defense was going really well,” Freier said. “We were double-teaming and getting steals. And we were hitting a lot our shots, and then we stopped hitting them and that’s when they started going on a run.”

MVL took its largest lead of the night, 55-32, on a layup from Olivia Hammer.

“I think we saw where we could double team,” Morgan said. “They really wanted it and they pushed hard to get that lead, because they figured they looked a little tired. But they [Cathedral] were resilient, I’ve got to give Cathedral credit on that. They just kept whittling away and whittling away on that. And that helped get them back into the game. But our little run there was just a team effort.”

Cathedral got going again with a 3-pointer from Thea Pazkiewicz, then Brynn Wilfahrt made a 3-pointer to make it a 57-40 game. Shay Wilfahrt made her milestone layup to cut the lead to 57-42.

“I was feeling pretty good,” Shay Wilfahrt said. “I was more so worried about the game, of course, but the game started off an my shots weren’t falling right away. I was trying to get my teammates some shots. But I wasn’t really feeling myself. But I knew they were going to help me out, they gave me some pretty good passes, some screens and everything, so eventually I got open and could make a nice move. It was fun, it was pretty exciting.”

Cathedral continued to push, with Altermatt and Brynn Wilfahrt both making 3s to cut the lead to 61-57.

“Obviously we have to handle pressure,” coach Wilfahrt said. “And that’s a whole team effort. So once we can do that, then we just try to keep moving the ball around and look for our open players.”

Both teams went cold from 3 late, but Shay Wilfahrt made a free throw and MVL called a timeout with 58.8 seconds to play with the score at 61-58. Freier was sent to the line and made both of her free throws, but a cutting Shay Wilfahrt scored to keep it a one-score game. However, Freier sunk three more free throws to seal the game away and give the Chargers the win.

Freier said the team needed to keep up the intensity more in moments to keep games from becoming close again late.

“We go in spurts of playing really hard and getting a lot of steals and working together to letting go of that intensity,” she said. “I think we need to keep that intensity throughout the whole game.”

MVL (3-2) hosts Blue Earth Area on Monday.

“We haven’t practiced in I think a week,” Morgan said. “I’m looking forward to Tuesday to work on the laundry list I’ve got written down because Monday we have Blue Earth again. The kids are tired from yesterday, which the effort they gave tonight, I was really proud of them.”

Cathedral (1-3) hosts Lester Prairie on Tuesday.