Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm's Levi Hopp drives to the hoop during a Kwik Trip Holiday Tournament boys basketball game at Bethany Lutheran College on Saturday.

MANKATO — New Ulm fell behind after a 12-0 Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton run in the second half of a Kwik Trip Bethany Holliday Tournament boys basketball game on Saturday as the Eagles lost 83-76 to the Bulldogs in the semifinals round.

“I thought we came out and competed really hard,” New Ulm head coach Michael Poncelet said. “I thought we did some really good things, we just had some lapses at times that ended up — you can’t have lapses against really good teams, and they were a really good team.”

New Ulm was behind by as much as 68-55 but climbed back to a 72-70 deficit. However, JWP was able to maintain control of the game in the final minutes.

“I think we were pretty gritty,” Poncelet said. “We were getting stops. We did a better job matching up and keeping up with them and closing out on their 3-point shooters. They’re really good shooters, and I thought early on we just let them shoot open shots too much. I think once we cleaned that up, they had a tougher time with our length and they turned it over some and we were able to get out in transition and run a bit and claw our way back.

Owen Castleman led the Eagles with 17 points, while Mitchell Hopp had 16 points and Levi Hopp added 9 points.

New Ulm started up early thanks to two 3s from Mitchell Hopp for a 10-5 advantage. However, the Bulldogs chipped away at the lead, going up 24-23 on a pair of free throws from Tyson Kronbach. The teams battled for several possessions, but New Ulm jumped out to a 40-32 lead after a layup from Lendale Dunmars and a 3 from Levi Hopp. However, JWP closed out the half with a 10-2 run to finish the half with a 42-42 tie.

Part of the comeback was due to foul trouble for the Eagles, who put the Bulldogs into the bonus just eight minutes into the game.

“One of the things I tell them is if we’re going to foul, we foul in the paint,” Poncelet said. “We let them know our presence in the paint, but we can’t foul in between the 3-point lines. That’s what we did in the first half is we fouled in between the 3-point lines and gave them easy points, allowed them to get back into the game. We were up 8, and they kept knocking down free throws where they put them in position to go into halftime with a tie game with a lot mor confidence then they would have had if they’re down 10, which certainly could have happened had we not fouled them.”

Zach Hubbard scored the first bucket of the second half for New Ulm, and the teams continued to battle until JWP went on its 12-0 run to take a 63-50 lead. New Ulm got back on track with a corner 3 from Tanner Backer and a layup from Hubbard, and the Eagles went on a 13-4 run, highlighted by a 3 from Castleman, to cut the lead back to 72-70.

The teams traded layups before JWP called a timeout with 1:38 to play. Gavin Bauer hit a 3-pointer to put JWP up 77-72, then the Bulldogs got into the double bonus, and New Ulm was unable to break through to complete the comeback.

New Ulm (3-4) plays Minnesota Valley Lutheran in the third place game on Monday at BLC.