Chargers cruise over Greyhounds

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- It was total domination.

Minnesota Valley Lutheran broke to a 20-11 first quarter lead and cruised to a 72-42 win over cross-town rival New Ulm Cathedral Friday night in Tomahawk Conference play.

David Nass paced four Chargers in double figures with a game-high 15 points. Ben Ziesmer added 14, Tyler Morgan 12 and Greg Holzhueter 10.

Eric Schugel led Cathedral (1-5) with 11 points.

"Our kids came out and really played well," said Charger coach Craig Morgan, who saw his team improve to 3-2 in the conference and 5-2 overall. "We really played good denial defense -- we helped out with each other and we did not foul. We stayed out of foul trouble."

For the game, MVL hit on 26-of-34 free throws while Cathedral went to the charity stripe just two times.

Cathedral coach Paul Hazuka put it in plain terms. "MVL took it to us, especially late in the first quarter and into the second quarter," he said. "I thought that we handled their pressure well at the beginning but then they just kept beating us down floor and beating us on the boards.'

Cathedral took its only lead of the game at 9-8 on an Eric Schugel jumper, followed by a trey by Adam Neubauer. But two free throws by Nass sparked a 7-0 run by MVL that resulted in a 16-9 lead for the Chargers. That would swell to a 20-11 lead at the end of the first quarter before MVL outscored Cathedral 19-3 in the second quarter.

Joe Hazuka's trey was the only points for the Greyhounds in the second quarter before Cody Forst hit a bucket with 1:45 left in the first half. "They were just quicker than we were and they wanted to get to the ball more," said Hazuka about the Charger run."

By then, MVL had the game in hand with a 42-20 lead at halftime due in part to a 22-7 rebounding edge by the Chargers.

"Our guys really worked hard tonight," said Morgan. "That is something that we have been stressing -- we are a small team so we need to go up and get the ball. We had the desire to go up and get the ball against Cathedral."

That halftime lead was spurred by Tyler Morgan who scored the first 10 points of the second quarter as he was on the end of passes for easy buckets. "They moved the ball well on offense," said Hazuka.

MVL was 14 for 31 from the field in the first half and matched that by sinking 14 of 18 free throw attempts in that first 16 minutes.

"The free throws are a part of them being aggressive -- that is the way that they play," commented Hazuka. "They want to go to the basket often but we need to go to the basket more often."

Morgan said that while the MVL offense worked well in the win (hitting 23 of 54 shots from the field) that has not always been the case. "Offensively, we could not get in a groove in a couple of our games. Here, we got in a groove a little bit -- got things flowing so we could change some of our offense and work with a few other things."

Whatever the Chargers worked with offensively, it worked as they saw their 42-20 halftime lead balloon to a 58-34 lead on free throws courtesy of Nass and Holzhueter with less than a minute left in the third quarter.

Hazuka said that right now "they are that much better than us. We played hard early but we need to do that all game. Right now, we have not done that."

Besides the rebounding edge in the game (36-14) Morgan was pleased with the balanced scoring. "It spreads the scoring around which is nice to do," he said. "We may have one dominant shooter but everyone contributes a lot to that," he said.

MVL also won the "B" game 42-25. Adam Dose led MVL with nine points with Sam Verschaetse pacing Cathedral with eight.

MVL 20-22-16-14=72

CATHEDRAL 11- 9-16 -6=42

MVL (72): Nass 15, Ziesmer 14, Morgan 12. Holzhueter 10, Unke 4, Siemers 4, Schaffer 3, Sander 3, Beilke 2, Costello 2, Holz 2, Wiechmann 1.

CHS (42): Schugel 11, Reinarts 6, Lux 5, Neubauer 5, Hazuka 5, Rysdahl 4, Forst 4, Schwarz 2, Hoffmann 2.