“I loved our intensity, honestly,” MVL head coach Kory Kettner said. “We competed all night. They did get us on some cuts to the basket in the second half, and that really hurt us. But overall, if we’re going to play that hard, I can’t complain about anything. We came out, we competed, and that’s the important thing.”

Pierson Brau led the Chargers with 18 points, while Blake Sexton had 13 points and seven rebounds. Owen Birkholz and Luke Merseth both added 11 points for MVL.

Riley Bussler led Sibley East with 10 points.

Ezra Weber started out the game with a 3 for Sibley East, but Birkholz responded with a 3 of his own. Bussler added a layup for the Wolverines, but again MVL struck back with layups from Brau, Sexton and Luke Merseth for a 9-5 lead. A transition layup forced a timeout from Sibley East as the Chargers took a 12-7 lead, but Sibley East came back with a 8-2 run, closed out with a layup from a cutting Aiden Bauer, to take a 15-14 lead. However, the Chargers got 3s from Birkholz and Connor Bode to take the lead once more, never giving it back from that point on. MVL extended the run to 14-3 to close the half, with Sexton scoring two layups during the stretch for a 29-18 halftime lead.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey Sibley East’s Carson Schmidt puts up a layup during a South Central Conference boys basketball game against Minnesota Valley Lutheran Friday at MVL High School.

“We were just locked in,” Kettner said. “It’s got to start on the defensive end for us, and it did tonight. The ball moved pretty nicely and pretty freely on offense, got to where it needed to go. We were able to get some.”

The Chargers came out of the second half hot offensively, with Brau leading the charge as MVL went on a 10-6 run, with Brau scoring twice during the stretch.

“Just bring the juice,” Brau said. “I felt we were a little asleep in the first half, and the second half we just decided to wake up, and it showed for sure.”

MVL held a 39-24 lead as it called a timeout with 14:52 to play, and the Wolverines got back with a 3-pointer from Will Feterl. MVL responded with a mid-range shot from Birkholz, and the Chargers continued to score with a paint shot from Brau for a 43-28 lead. Bauer got another 3 to fall for Sibley East before the Chargers went on a 7-0 run, with Sexton scoring 3 for a 52-33 lead. A layup from Brau helped close out the 56-38 win for MVL.

MVL (7-3, 1-0) plays at Nicollet on Saturday, while Sibley East (3-6, 0-1) plays at Lester Prairie on Saturday.