NEW ULM — Minnesota Valley Lutheran shook off some first-half struggles with a late second-half surge as the Chargers won their third straight game with a 61-54 win over Blue Earth Area in a nonconference boys basketball game.

Blake Sexton led the Chargers (10-7) with 13 points. Brennan Bendix added 12 and Pierson Brau came off of the bench to score 10.

Gage Barker led the Bucs (8-10) with a game-high 22 points.

“This was a tough game for us,” Chargers head coach Craig Morgan said. “We put a lot of effort in the [Sleepy Eye] St. Marys game Monday (a 74-65 win for MVL) and then we came back-to-back with this one. But we had guys tonight who just did not play as well as they had been playing. But we had other guys come in and stepped up.”

The Chargers, who host a tough LeSueur-Henderson squad on Thursday, had a low scoring first half battle with the Bucs in the first 18 minutes.

MVL trailed 12-10 at the 9:45 mark before back-to-back hoops from Ethan Schauland lifted the Chargers to a 15-12 lead.

MVL took a 21-17 lead late in the first half before a 3 by Caden Juba cut the lead to 21-20 at halftime.

BEA also forced nine turnovers and blocked five MVL shots.

“We said at halftime that we have to keep plugging away and keep shooting and something will break,” Morgan said.

Morgan also said on how they were going to attack the Bucs zone defense in the second half.

“When you have Luke [Merseth] and Blake [Sexton] doing a nice job working together inside — they did it last night — and they had a couple of possessions where they also did tonight,” Morgan said. “They moved the ball well and they see each other well.”

Two baskets from Sexton gave the Chargers a 35-30 lead.

Two baskets from Brau saw the Chargers take a 47-35 lead with eight minutes left in the game.

MVL saw the lead shrink to 57-52 before pulling away for the win.

Morgan said that this week is a tough week for the Chargers with Thursday’s contest coming up against LeSueur-Henderson for MVL’s third game in four days.

“But we will be OK,” he said.