Minnesota Valley Lutheran outlasted the United South Central boys’ basketball team Monday in Wells in a 73-67 win.

The Rebels battled back from an early deficit in the first half to take a 33-32 lead at the break, but Galen Holzhueter heated up in the second half and carried the No. 7-ranked Chargers (24-1) to victory.

Holzhueter scored nine of MVL’s first 11 points in the second half as the Chargers took a four-point lead four minutes into the second half.

“He’s an outstanding player,” said USC head coach Rob Stevermer. “He’s been a handful for us every year we’ve played them. He’s so aggressive, he drives to basket so well and he’s so strong yet he can step up and hit an outside shot. He’s just a multifaceted player.”

Holzhueter finished with a game-high 22 points and converted two three-point plays early in the second half to build a MVL lead that the Rebels weren’t able to make up.

USC hit one shot from the field in the first six minutes in the second half and committed five turnovers during that span.

The Chargers dominated the glass and tallied 16 offensive rebounds in the game.

The offensive rebounds, coupled with the 19 turnovers the Rebels committed hurt USC throughout the game.

“That’s pretty much the difference in the game,” Stevermer said. “If we slowed them down and rebounded a little better, we probably had a chance to win the game, even with as many turnovers as we had.”

The transition game for MVL was difficult to stop and something Stevermer said his team hasn’t seen much of this season.

Stevermer did see some positives from the game, especially when his team got into the halfcourt.

“When we did take care of it, and we attacked the things we wanted, good things happened,” he said.

Kyle Bauman and Jake Sonnek were strong down low for the Rebels.

Bauman, a 6-foot-6 freshman, scored 17 points to lead USC while Sonnek came through with some big buckets in the second half to keep the Rebels in the game. Sonnek finished with 12 points.

Riley Swearingen finished with 14 points and Riley Stenzel scored 13 points for USC as well.

“Once we got settled in and realized how the game was going to be played, we did a pretty good job of attacking them on offense,” Stevermer said.

USC trailed by eight with four minutes to go in the first half, but closed out strong on a 9-0 run to take a one-point lead at half.

“We were kind of on our heels for a while,” Stevermer said. “We were able to work our way back in the game. That was really impressive to see because we didn’t get down about it, we played harder.”

MVL 73, USC 67

MVL 32 41 — 73

USC 33 34 — 67

MVL scoring: Galen Holzhueter 22, Brandon Smith 17, Josh Danell 10, Bryce Krohn 10, Josh Hoffman 6, Mike Zibrowski 4, Christian Evers 2, Seth Hoscheit 2.

USC scoring: Kyle Bauman 17, Riley Swearingen 14, Riley Stenzel 13, Jake Sonnek 12, Nick Fure 6, William Huper 3, Taylor Ovrebo 2.