NEW ULM — After losing their first three games this season, a young and inexperienced Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers boys basketball team has now ran off three consecutive wins following their 70-56 road win Tuesday over Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop.

Chargers head coach Craig Morgan said his team that had no starters back from last years squad is learning more and more each day.

“They are learning what it means to be on the varsity basketball team,” he said. “They are learning to read what the defense gives you and helping out and playing together.”

What also added to the three losses to open the season was a tough schedule with an 82-59 loss to a currently 3-1 Springfield team and a 94-59 loss to a 7-0 Waseca team.

“We threw this team into the fire right away,” Morgan said. “In hindsight everybody asked, ‘Why did you have Waseca for our home opener and you lose the first game in the new field house.’ But it was playing a team that we had not played before and a good team that is in our section.”

Early on, Morgan said that all of the players on the team wanted to be a contributor.

“And everyone tells you that you have to contribute with points. You have to convince young players that they can contribute in other ways — setting a screen away from the ball, they can rebound, can play defense or make the next pass — and those are all things that they are learning.”

Morgan said that the goal for the team was to get better each day in practices.

“They want to compete, and when they put their minds to it and think a little bit, they can do it,” he said.

MVL started its three-game winning streak with a 64-47 road win at Martin County West before defeating New Ulm Cathedral 65-60 at home.

“The win against Martin County felt good,” Morgan said. “Had we lost that game, we may have started questioning ourselves. But that game we moved the ball around and we played very good defense against a team that was methodical with their flex offense. They played well together.”

The Chargers then lead from start to finish in a close 65-60 win over the Greyhounds.

“Cathedral had been playing good basketball,” Morgan said. “They beat Sleepy Eye Public and Sleepy Eye St. Marys, so any time we can beat a good Cathedral team that is well-coached and plays hard it is nice.”

And Morgan feels that the three-game winning streak has been a total team effort.

“You look at our scorers, and we barely get somebody in double-digits each game,” he said. “We have had six games and five different starting lineups. So when somebody gets sick or hurt, someone else steps up. We only have 12 guys on the varsity, and they can all play. Our practices are very competitive — this is a good group of guys that competes every day in practice and works hard.”

GREYHOUNDS GET BIG COMEBACK WIN

If you were in attendance for the New Ulm Cathedral-Lester Prairie boys basketball game, you saw the Greyhounds never lead in the game in regulation, tie the game up on a Jake Finstad 3 at the buzzer, and then win it in overtime.

The Greyhounds trailed by 12 points early in the second half.

Cathedral head coach Alan Woitas said that they made adjustments in the second half.

“Number 21 [Cory Schauer, who scored 20 points] did a great job of protecting the paint, so we went five small for a little while to pull him off of the perimeter and we were able to knock down some shots,” Woitas said. “And we were able to create some turnovers and limit their second chance opportunities.”

And comebacks are nothing new to the Greyhounds who saw a comeback against MVL fall short.

“And even in our first game against BOLD, we were down by almost 20 points in that game and got it back to a three point game,” Woitas said. “This team is very capable of competing and we believe that.”

EAGLES GIRLS BASKETBALL WINS FOUR IN A ROW

Like the MVL boys basketball team, the New Ulm Eagles girls team lost their first three games of the season but now have rebounded with four straight wins after an 85-59 Big South Conference road win at Fairmont.

“Our first three games of the season were tough,” New Ulm head coach Julie Rogers said. “We looked around and said, ‘Lets play some of the best teams in the state in the first week.’ And that is what we did.”

The Eagles did just that playing AAAA Wayzata (5-2) in an 88-43 loss, Orono (7-1) in a 64-30 defeat, and Marshall (8-0) in an 83-79 defeat.

“I was a little bit surprised that we went 0-3,” Rogers said. “We knew that it was going to be some tough competition. But in the past we have had two full weeks of practice including two scrimmages before we played our first game. Instead we went and played Wayzata after our second week of practice and just one scrimmage. We wanted to challenge ourselves and we did do that physically. It was also tough mentally as well to go against three extremely talented teams, but we are playing the long game here and hope that it pays off for us in the end.”

Rogers said the girls were down after three losses.

“They are competitors,” she said. “They want to win and they want to make sure that they are doing everything that they need to do in order to win. Us as coaches are always talking about long-term goals and what we need to do to be playing the way we want to play in February and March.”

Rogers said there is a lot of pressure on her team this season.

“Both coming from outside and from themselves.” she said. “They know that they have the talent to do good things and reach their team goals, so part of the thing that we are working on in team practices is the mental game of staying relaxed enough so that you can play good basketball. But to also keep in mind that one missed shot in December does not mean that things are going to go bad.”

Rogers said both of her guards, Brooklyn Lewis and Maddie Backer, have been doing a fabulous job on and off of the court.

“They can challenge other teams’ guards and make some steals and put pressure on because they know that they have a supporting cast behind them,” Rogers said. “And we have Riley Wilson coming in off of the bench and playing some great defense for us. And our other three starters — Morgan Hulke, Ramsey Hopp and Betsy Joyce — are all solid on the court. They are the reason that Brooklyn and Maddie can play such tough defense as they trust those teammates behind them.”

And the Eagles do have quality depth.

“We have eighth-grader Leah Brustad and Maggie Joyce coming off of the bench,” Rogers said. “Leah has been in double figures the last two games — she can jump out of the gym — and then we get some guard relief from McKenna Hulke and Jordan Boettger. So we have a good supporting cast.”

The Eagles (4-3, 3-1) have a huge road game Friday at St. Peter (6-1, 3-0).

“I have never beaten St. Peter, so I would like to knock them off,” Rogers said. “We have the talent to do it — we have to go into an opponent’s gym. This will be our fifth away game in a row, and that is tough to always travel to someone else’s gym. This is a big game not only for the conference but also the section. They are in our pod in the conference and in our pod for the section.”