With a strong end to the first half and a consistent effort in the second half, the Indians were able to hold off a relentless Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman/Martin Luther Jaguars team for a 77-72 win in a Tomahawk-Valley Conference crossover game.

Jaguars senior guard Brody Grathwohl did all he could to will his team victory, pouring in a game-high 27 points that saw him hit 7 of 15 shots from the 3-point line.

Despite Grathwohl’s best efforts, Sleepy Eye was able to counter with a balanced scoring effort that had four players in double figures, led by Brayden Heiderscheidt’s 22 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. Braylon Nelson added 14 points, 12 rebounds and three assists, while Robert Romberg had 14 points and four steals and Eric Lozano had 12 points, six assists and five rebounds.

Chase Zufall added a trio of 3s off the bench for the Indians to finish with 9 points, while Jaxon Heiderscheidt added 8 points.

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Sleepy Eye’s Brayden Heiderscheidt goes up for a layup during a Tomahawk-Valley Conference crossover boys basketball game against Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman/Martin Luther on Tuesday at Sleepy Eye High School.

Sleepy Eye head coach Shane Heiderscheidt said he gave his players last week off of practice to give them a nice Christmas break, but his plans for open gym on Sunday and Monday were messed up to the weekend winter storm.

“Big difference when you’re not running every day, but you still gotta play the game,” he said. “I just didn’t think we were gonna have a winter storm when we were supposed to come back and practice. When we locked in and ran the floor like we could, make the extra pass, our offense rolls pretty good when we get up and down the floor.”

Eli Jensen added 17 points for the Jaguars, while Griffin Studer had 8 points and eight rebounds and Ethan Jasulke had 6 points and eight rebounds. Elliott Flohrs added seven rebounds.

Jaguars head coach Bryan Nowicki was happy with how his players were able to keep battling throughout the game against a quality team like Sleepy Eye.

“This is probably the best two halves of basketball we’ve played all year,” Nowicki said. “We were patient on offense. A few times when they went on runs, we get a little pass happy, we shoot one 3 and they beat us down the court. They’re a really good basketball team, they’re 6-1 for a reason. They score a lot of points.

“I told the guys, ‘We’re not that team, we can’t run with them, we’re not gonna score 90, we just can’t do it, so we have to slow down. We move the ball, get the ball down low and get a kick-out.’ We just had to slow the game down and let the game come to us.”

After about two minutes of missed shots on both ends, Brayden Heiderscheidt got his team going with a one-handed pass from half court to Romberg inside on the break for a 2-0 lead. Grathwohl answered on the other end and the Jaguars built an early 9-4 lead after a Grathwohl 3, a free throw from Lane Kruse and a 3 from Kruse. Moments later, Sleepy Eye got the lead back when Riley Voigt found Romberg for a fast-break bucket and 12-11 lead. Lozano extended the lead to 14-11 with a nothing-but-net jumper.

The Jaguars took the lead back and extended it 17-14 on a baseline jumper from Studer. The teams traded buckets and leads after that until the Jaguars got a bucket inside from Alex Benck and a 3 by Jensen got a 27-21 lead, the largest lead of the night for the Jaguars.

Brothers Brayden and Jaxon Heiderscheidt each knocked in a 3 after that to tie the game, however, and a fast-break layup by Lozano had the Indians back in front. Sleepy Eye’s run continued with a Lozano-to-Nelson bucket inside. Nelson then promptly stole the ball and returned the favor with a pass to Lozano for a fast-break layup, giving the Indians a 36-27 lead and capping off a 15-0 run.

The Indians led 39-31 at halftime.

Voigt knocked down a jumper to open the second half, giving Sleepy Eye its first double-digit lead of the night. The Jaguars got back within 5 and their deficit bounced between 5 and 10 points after that until Sleepy Eye took a 73-59 lead late after a 9-0 run that was ended with a 3 from Lozano. The Jaguars got 3s from Grathwohl and Jensen late to have their team down single digits again and another corner 3 in the closing seconds by Grathwohl finished all scoring.

“[Brody’s] super competitive,” Nowicki said. “He’s long, he’s athletic, he’s quick. He can get to the hole and then he can knock down some 3s. He kind of helped carry us there and he did stem the tide a couple times, made some big shots, attacked the hoop. Usually in these games where it gets to be a little more physical, we struggle, but we played really well today with that and I don’t know if we shot two free throws all game, which is hard to believe in a game like this. Brody’s a great leader, does a lot of good things.”

GHEC/T/ML finished making 3 of 4 shots at the foul line, while Sleepy Eye was 6 of 11 at the foul line.

Coach Heiderscheidt said while he didn’t have his players run their standard defense due to fatigue, he credited Grathwohl for his play.

“We didn’t really play our style of defense either, I kind of let the guys sit back in the 2-3 zone just because I knew we weren’t gonna have our legs,” coach Heiderscheidt said. “But you’ve gotta give [Grathwohl] credit, he hit some tough shots. But if we were in the flow of our game, I think our defense would have been a lot better.”

Sleepy Eye (6-1) is at BOLD on Friday night, while GHEC/T/ML (2-6) travels to Morgan to play Cedar Mountain on Jan. 8.