File photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm Cathedral’s Ryler Collins shoots a 3-pointer during a nonconference boys basketball game against BOLD on Jan. 26 at Cathedral High School.

NEW ULM — For the first time this season, the New Ulm Cathedral Greyhounds placed four players in double-figure scoring.

And they needed everyone of them.

Eli Anderson’s conventional three-point basket with 1:38 left in the game gave Cathedral a 68-66 lead over Martin County West, and free throws from Logan Goblirsch and Quinten Forst with under a minute sealed the game as Cathedral downed the Mavericks 70-66 Friday in a nonconference boys basketball game.

Anderson led the Greyhounds (8-17) with 23 points. Forst added 17 with Ryler Collins ending with 12 and Goblirsch 11.

Chase Owens led Martin County West (3-23) with 17 points.

Cathedral head coach Zach Kaiser said that the win was keyed by a balanced scoring effort.

“It was nice to see other players step up tonight,” he said. “And this is what we have been waiting for all year — we are finding out that the farther that we get into the season the more film that there is on us and we need to have balance.”

The Greyhounds, who close out their regular season Tuesday at Springfield, took a quick 7-0 run on the Mavericks before Martin County West called a timeout three minutes into the game.

After the timeout, Martin County West went on a 14-0 run to take a 14-7 lead and would increase that to a 32-27 lead at halftime.

“They switched defenses to a box-and-one on Eli,” Kaiser said. “They played us straight up man right away and we took control of the game at the start. And in those situations I want our guys to figure it out so I get hesitant on calling a timeouts — but we were shell shocked by the box-and-one.”

Kaiser said that the Greyhounds to have a designed offense for the box-and-one. “But we let ourselves get away from it,” he said.

The Mavericks remained hunkered down in that box-and-one defense to start the second half and gained a 41-35 lead before the Greyhounds forced them to change the defense with ball movement.

“We started to move the ball around more,” Kaiser said. “We started to hit shots and when they were in that box — he found his open teammates with passes.”

Collins was especially effective in breaking the defense as he canned four straight 3s for a 53-52 Cathedral lead.

It was the first Greyhounds lead since early in the game.

“That is credit to the kids perseverance,” Kaiser said. “We dug in defensively — Will Finstad, a freshman, had a nice game defensively and took care of the ball really well. Everybody contributed tonight.”

The Mavericks did have the lead at 54-53 before Cathedral took control of the game late.

“This was a big win for us,” Kaiser said. “Now we wait to see where we end up in the playoffs — we are looking to be a 14th seed and right now Martin County West is at 19th, so we could host them again next Friday in the first round, but we need to see what happens with all of these tie-breakers.”