Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm Cathedral’s Jimmy Jensen drives the baseline during a Tomahawk Division boys basketball game against Lester Prairie Tuesday at Cathedral High School.

NEW ULM — It was not the way that New Ulm Cathedral wanted to start its game Tuesday night against Lester Prairie.

The Bulldogs jumped to a 17-0 lead just under five minutes into their game and used that as a springboard to a 71-46 win over the Greyhounds in a Tomahawk Division boys basketball game.

Eli LaMott led Lester Prairie (5-11, 4-7) with a game-high 21 points.

Eli Anderson ended with 17 for Cathedral, which fell to 6-11 overall and 4-7 in conference action.

“Spotting a team a 17-point lead is a recipe for disaster,” Cathedral head coach Zach Kaiser said. “And I do not think that the game Monday had anything to do with this — the guys seemed like they were prepared for tonight. But playing back-to-back nights is tough. Our message before the game was that we cannot let the loss [Monday] hang over into a poor start, which it did.”

The Bulldogs, who lost 83-70 to Cathedral earlier in the year, jumped to that 17-0 lead thanks to three 3s that forced Kaiser to call a timeout after a Bennett Herman 3.

The Greyhounds, who host Wabasso Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. finally got on the board on two Anderson free throws.

Lester Prairie increased their lead to 28-8 at the seven-minute mark.

“Our effort was not bad at least at the beginning,” Kaiser said. “We were trying to force things that were not there. We had guys playing out of their comfort zone.”

The Bulldogs used a box-and-one defense on Anderson holding him to nine first-half points.

“Their game plan was to take away Eli [Anderson],” Kaiser said. “We know that we are going to see that so we have to make adjustments. Other guys are going to have to be more willing to step up and be comfortable of stepping up because they are capable of it.”

It was also a first half where the Greyhounds made just 3 of 14 shots from beyond the arc as Lester Prairie held a 36-20 lead at halftime.

The Bulldogs increased their lead to 48-21 and then 60-27.

“We need to have other players step up and other players have been stepping up,” Kaiser said.

Kaiser knows that Saturday’s matinee game against Wabasso will be a tough challenge for his team.

“We talked about Wabasso in the locker room after this game,” he said. “We need to have some good practices and doing everthing at game speed.

“Wabasso is not going to do anything special they are going to go five-on-five against us and they are talented enough to do that. We have to give them our best shot and see what happens.”