NEW ULM — New Ulm Cathedral produced its best offense of the season Tuesday night as the Greyhounds ran by Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop 95-73 in a Tomahawk Conference game.

Jon Zinniel led four Greyhounds (14-1, 8-1) in double figures with 31 points. Chris Knowles netted 24 points with Sam Knowles contributing 18 and James Gillis 16. Zinniel also added six rebounds and five blocked shots. Sam Knowles added to his resume with 19 rebounds and seven assists with Chris Knowles throwing in six rebounds, five assists and five steals.

Johnnie Ambrose paced five Thunderbirds (3-11, 2-7) in double figures with 15. Damian Hopp and Dominic Heinrichs each scored 14 with Tylor Hopp scoring 13. Ethan Schwarzrock ended with 11.

For the Greyhounds and head coach Alan Woitas, the game was one where Cathedral was challenged by the Thunderbirds.

“Their kids played hard and challenged us offensively and attacking the hoop on a consistent basis,” Woitas said. “I felt that offensively we were very efficient — we moved the ball well — and we got good shots and that was a team effort. We had guys making that extra pass to get a great shot.”

The Greyhounds, who have a big conference game at Springfield on Saturday, could not shake the Thunderbirds for most of the game. Cathedral built a 23-16 lead on Sam Knowles’ fifth straight basket but GFW outscored Cathedral 8-0 to take a 24-23 lead on a Tylor Hopp basket.

“They kept coming,” Woitas said about GFW. “They are definitely improved from the first time we played them.”

Cathedral ran off six straight points for a 39-29 lead and then built the lead to 47-35 before taking a 50-40 lead at half-time.

GFW stayed close at 60-56 before the Greyhounds slowly started to pull away.

Two baskets from Zinniel sandwiched around a Zinniel 3-pointer saw Cathedral take a 67-56 lead before Zinniel scored off of a pass from Sam Knowles for a 71-60 lead. Cathedral increased that margin to 78-63 on a Gillis 3-pointer at the 6:23 mark.

A Zinniel dunk on an a feed from Chris Knowles upped the lead to 84-66 with less than four minutes left in the game.

“We were able to attack them inside in the second half,” Woitas said. “We had some lapses defensively but overall we regrouped and really played well.”