Up-tempo Chargers wear down Eagles

By JEREMY BEHNKE

Journal Sports Writer

MANKATO -- They may not be big physically, but they know how to play big when it matters most.

For the second year in a row, the Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers won the Pepsi Holiday Tournament at Bethany Lutheran College, defeating Maple River 60-54. The Chargers won despite being undersized, with height being one of the reasons the Eagles entered the game 7-1 before Thursday's game.

"We weren't really worried about that," Tyler Morgan said. "We knew David [Nass] and I could do a pretty good job of teamwork down there. We scrimmaged them earlier in the year, so we knew we could handle them."

MVL used an up-tempo approach that eventually wore out the Eagles. The Eagles, primarily a half-court team, appeared to be tired midway through the third quarter.

"We tried to keep them out of the lane and work them and pretty much just run with the ball," Morgan said.

Ben Ziesemer led the Chargers in scoring with 17 points. Sophomore point guard Greg Holzhueter scored 13 and grabbed five rebounds and David Nass scored 11 points and had seven rebounds.

"We're not tall, but our boys down low like to play hard, and they really played hard today," Holzhueter said. "They do a good job of using their bodies and getting into those big guys' heads."

Morgan, who defended against 6-foot 8 sophomore center Elijah Blakesley, had five points and 10 rebounds. He said that this tournament is usually the time his team meshes.

"I think this tournament brings us all together," Morgan said. "On Tuesday, we got BLH, so we just gotta take it from there."

The Chargers took advantage of six Maple River turnovers in the first quarter and jumped out to a 15-10 lead. But the Eagles were able to work the game back into their style of play, and they went up 28-27 on Blakesley's rebound and putback. Blakesley had 14 points and 10 rebounds.

"We knew they had some size, so we wanted to pick the pace up and take away that advantage of their size," Holzhueter said. "We did that pretty well early in the game, and towards the end we did that too."

Like he did the previous night against Nicollet, Ziesemer got hot in the second half and scored seven points in the pivotal third quarter. The Chargers went up 38-31 on a basket by Jason Costello, and they led 47-39 after three quarters.

The Eagles committed 11 turnovers and the Chargers committed 10. Sophomore Dan DeWitz also scored 14 for the Eagles.

Notes: Ziesemer, Nass and Holzhueter made the All-Tournament team for the Chargers and Mitch Drager and Blakesley made the squad for Maple River. Nicollet's Mike Rosin and Jeff Zimmerman made the team, along with New Ulm Cathedral's Joe Hazuka and Eric Schugel. Mankato Loyola's Jon Miller, St. Peter's Matt Knutson, NRHEG's Bjorn Peterson, and Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial's Jesse Van Sickle also made the team.

Jeremy Behnke can be reached at jbehnke@nujournal.com