A late spark, and a big reverse layup from 6-foot-10 forward Logan Junkermeier helped lift the Cardinals to a 59-49 win.

Junkermeier, the obvious go-to option for the Cardinals (17-2) this season, was held to 17 points and eight rebounds. But he made enough plays in key spots to handle the pressure New Ulm threw at him and led his team to the win.

“We knew that New Ulm’s a very good team,” Junkermeier said. “We knew they were gonna come out and play hard on their home floor. They’ve got a big home court advantage in my opinion. We knew that they were going to be very physical with us and we had to keep the ball moving, try and get them out of locations and then try to get easy buckets off of that.”

At the end of the night, Eagles (10-10) head coach Michael Poncelet wasn’t happy with his team’s turnovers and wasted opportunities.

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm’s Tanner Backer puts up a shot in the paint during the second half of a Big South Conference crossover boys basketball game against Fairmont on Friday night at New Ulm High School.

“I actually think we played really poorly,” Poncelet said. “We turned the ball over way too many times and I’ll give credit to [Fairmont’s] defense. … That’s what we were anticipating from them. I look at their record, but also look at who they played versus who we played and it could easily be the other way. I think we’re an equal team to them, but we just turned it over too much.

“We worked on some of that transition stuff in practice and it just didn’t translate well enough to be able to find some easy buckets when we did turn it over. And they did a good job protecting the basketball, they didn’t turn it over as much.”

Cardinals 6-foot-5 post Reed Johnson added 15 points and nine rebounds, while Joe Long had 12 points and Joe Hackett added 8 points and eight rebounds.

New Ulm was led by Joey Wise’s 16 points, while Mitchell Hopp had 11 points and Tanner Backer had 7 points.

Wise, Backer and Zach Hubbard all played good, physical defense also against Junkermeier despite the loss, something Poncelet was happy with.

“They were really physical with him and I thought they did a good job holding him down,” Poncelet said. “Him scoring 17, that should put us in position to win. We held them in the 50s, that’s one of our best defensive performances all season. They struggled with what we gave them on defense, but we couldn’t score.”

Junkermeier’s second bucket of the game put his team up 13-6, forcing Poncelet to burn a timeout with 13:01 left in the half. His players responded out of the timeout with a 7-0 run to tie the game. First it was Noah Mertz inside with a bucket before a 3 and steal for a layup by Mitchell Hopp tied it up.

Jordan Thompson drained a corner 3 to stop the run and give Fairmont the lead back, but Wise and Owen Castleman scored to put the Eagles up 17-16 and the teams trade buckets before Mitchell Hopp found Jayden Broste open in the corner for a 3 and 22-18 Eagles lead.

A 3 by Wise moments later gave New Ulm its biggest lead of the night, 25-20, but the Cardinals ended the half up 28-27 after a Junkermeier and-one and another free throw in the final minute.

A bucket in the paint by Backer put the Eagles back in front to open the second half, but Long’s corner 3 ignited a 7-0 Cardinals run to put them up 35-29. Buckets by Backer and Wise had New Ulm down 37-35 to force a Fairmont timeout, and Junkermeier and Johnson scored back-to-back baskets inside for a 41-35 lead.

The Eagles cut it down to a 3-point game late after Hubbard found Wise inside for 2, but another Fairmont timeout helped settle the Cardinals down as Johnson scored inside and Junkermeier followed with his big reverse layup for a 54-47 lead. Wise scored once more for New Ulm, but the Eagles were forced to foul in the final minute, tacking on 5 more points to the Cardinals’ total from the foul line.

“We practice against the 2-3 [zone] some, but we don’t see a lot of 2-3, so we didn’t have a lot of time to work on an offense that gets us flowing,” Poncelet said. “And you saw a couple times we got it to the middle and had the backdoor cut from the bottom and it worked out. But we just didn’t have the muscle memory and the reps, we hadn’t worked on that enough to be consistent and effective for this.”

New Ulm hosts Tri-City United on Monday night.