Photo by Brady Dennis New Ulm’s Maggie Joyce puts up a layup during a nonconference girls basketball game against Central on Monday night at New Ulm High School.

NEW ULM — Brooklyn Lewis paced four Eagles in double figures with 21 points as New Ulm downed Central 70-61 Monday night in a non-conference girls basketball game.

Maggie Joyce added 15, Riley Wilson 12 and Leah Brustad 10 as the Eagles improved to 17-8 on the season.

Brooklyn Lewis is now 18 points away from 2,000 career points.

Whitney Cebullla led Central (17-7) with 19 points.

“This was an odd game,” New Ulm head coach Mitch Lewis said. “The game felt odd the whole time. We could not get into a rhythm — we were forcing a lot of things — we could not get into a rhythm to play our game.”

When the Eagles did settle into their game, they had control of the contest.

The Eagles took a 13-5 lead on a Leah Brustad basket off of a turnover and increased that to 26-16 on Brooklyn Lewis’ only 3 of the game.

But when the Eagles, who host AAAA Coon Rapids on Friday, Central was able to come back.

They used a 15-8 run to close out the first half and cut the New Ulm lead to 32-31 before two Wilson free throws had the Eagles holding a 34-31 lead at halftime.

“We quit rebounding again,” coach Lewis said. “I am sure we were out-rebounded and we talked about sharing the ball and kicking it out, drawing defenders, and we did not do that well in that first half at all.”

And it was deja vu in the second half for the Eagles as they built a 49-38 lead on baskets from Jordan Boettger and Brooklyn Lewis before Cental clawed back and cut the lead to 49-48 on a Cebulla basket.

But New Ulm recovered and regained momentum on 3s from Brustad and Wilson with a Maggie Joyce giving the Eagles a 64-53 lead with 5:40 left in the game.

But it was a game where the Eagles suffered through one of their poorest shooting nights of the season.

“We did not shoot well,” coach Lewis said. “We missed a lot of bunnies tonight but that does not worry me — those will go in. We need to know that coming into the playoffs that we need to share the ball and if we do that we will be OK. But our defense needs to pick up for the playoffs.”