“I would say a lot of the defensive stops [helped us win,] New Ulm’s Noah Mertz said. “And finishing our layups. We missed a lot in the first half and throughout the game. Just finishing and our game plan helped a lot.”

MVL had the advantage for much of the game, but a layup from New Ulm’s Mitchell Hopp put the Eagles up with under a minute to play. A turnover under the basket by MVL sealed the victory for New Ulm.

“We turned it over a little bit too much,” MVL head coach Corey Kettner said. “And ultimately at the end of the game we paid for that. But I thought our fight was pretty good. We threw in a completely new offense that the guys have never run before, and I thought they handled it pretty well, so we have something to build off of there.

“But New Ulm is a great team. Their coaching staff is unbelievable, and they’re going to win a lot of games this year. These are tough ones to take, but I’m proud of our effort.”

Staff photo by Ari Selvey Minnesota Valley Luthearn’s Blake Sexton (11) looks for a shot during the third-place game of the Kwik Trip Holiday Boys Basketball Tournament against New Ulm at Bethany Lutheran College on Monday.

Mitchell Hopp led the Eagles with 20 points, while Mertz had 10 points. For MVL, Pierson Brau had 19 points and six rebounds, while Blake Sexton had 17 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Owen Birkholz added 10 points.

MVL was up 62-60 with under two minutes to play before Mitchell Hopp tied it with a layup. Brau split a pair of free throws to give MVL the lead once more with 55.8 seconds to go before Mitchell Hopp hit his second driving layup for a 64-63 lead. New Ulm turned it over on an inbound with 10.8 seconds to go, but MVL couldn’t get a shot off, with the ball going out of bounds off the Chargers with just .9 seconds to go. New Ulm was able to inbound it for the win.

“We talked last game about both feet in,” Mertz said. “Just a mindset of being totally locked in on our game, especially on defense. We needed those two big stops and just poking the ball and stripping. Because they have some size on us that we didn’t have, especially with some of our guys out. We talked a lot about defense and locking in.”

MVL started off the game strong, taking a 17-12 lead off of the play of Brau, who scored 8 points during the stretch in the paint.

“That was our focus, is we wanted to pound it inside,” Kettner said. “Put it on the block and try to get some more easy buckets. We’ve been settling for a lot of quick 3s, and we just needed to change the way we’ve played. I though tonight, going into it cold never really playing that offense before, I thought we did a tremendous job. It wasn’t near close to perfect, but we got those touches in the paint like we needed too and scored almost enough.”

New Ulm cut the lead to 17-16 after a layup and a pair of free throws from Levi Hopp, and the teams battled closely, with a free throw by Joey Wise tying the game at 23 as the Chargers called a timeout with 3:56 to play. Luke Merseth made a layup to give the lead back to MVL, then Connor Bode hit a 3 to make it a 27-23 game. An and-one by Brau extended the lead to 34-25, but Mitchell Hopp was able to cut into it with a step-back 3 to make it a 34-28 game at halftime.

“I just though defensively, in the first half, we were super soft,” New Ulm head coach Michael Poncelet said. “They could pretty much do what they wanted. They were super tough, you saw how they were getting on the floor for everything, they were pounding the ball inside. Lots of easy buckets around the rim. They were doing a lot of good things, and we had to toughen up a bit and stop them.”

Merseth scored a layup to open the second half, and a 3 by Birkholz made it a 39-21 game. However, New Ulm went on a 10-2 run, fueled by a full press defense that turned the Chargers over three consecutive ties as the Eagles tied the game at 43 as MVL called a timeout with 11:48 to play.

“We were able to get our full-court press on them a little bit,” Poncelet said. “When we do that, we’re pretty good. When we get out and run, we’re pretty good, but when we get sucked into half-court games, we’re not very good. Just that commitment to getting into passing lanes, creating turnovers helps us get going, and we have better mental feelings and we just start playing better.”

Brau got it going for the Chargers again with a reverse layup, but New Ulm responded with a layup from Owen Castleman to tie it again. The teams went shot for shot, with a putback from Levi Hopp giving the Eagles a 51-49 lead, then a 3 from Bode making it a 54-53 Chargers lead. New Ulm called a timeout with 4:20 to play as Sexton scored on a putback to tie the game at 58, and the Eagles again called for time at 2:03 as a pair of free throws from Sexton gave the Chargers a 60-58 lead.

The Eagles got back in transition again with a layup from Mitchell Hopp, and MVL responded with a pair of free throws in the bonus from Birkholz for a 62-60 game. Mitchell Hopp hit his game-tying layup, and the Eagles came away with the win off of another Mitchell Hopp layup.

MVL defeated New Ulm last year at the Kwik Trip Holiday Boys Basketball Tournament in the schools’ first-ever time playing each other in boys basketball.

This year’s tournament was won by Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton, which defeated Maple River 68-46 in the finals, led by Gavin Bauer’s 18 points.

Fairmont defeated Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial 57-54 in the tournament’s fifth-place game, while the seventh-place game saw St. Clair defeat Mankato Loyola 70-55.

New Ulm (4-4) plays at Hutchinson on Saturday, while MVL (4-3) plays at Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s on Saturday.