The Blossoms toppled NRHEG Tuesday night in Blooming Prairie 59-38.

The Awesome Blossoms (5-1, 3-0 Gopher Conference) had hustle and muscle over a much taller Panthers team.

Matt Zellmer scored a quiet 24 points in the conference win.

The game got started when Josh Johnson the 6-foot, 285-pound senior forward got the scoring started for Blooming Prairie with a pretty touch shot from the left side to follow it up a minute later with the same thing from the right side making it a 6-0 Blossoms lead with a little over a minute elapsed.

NRHEG had problems finding much of any space at all on the floor to make a move to the hoop in the opening minutes with the score 10-2 after four of the five Blossom starters scored.

“Our guards played real well tonight,” Blooming Prairie coach John Bruns said. “The guys made two great runs tonight in each half that really gave us the point spread to keep them from making a run.”

Justin Ingvaldson got the and finished with 12 points.

“Justin did some nice things on the boards,” Bruns said. “Our shooters were able to get open because of it and they started hitting.”

It was a frustrating night for the Panthers overall as they weren’t able to get any outside shooting going and inside the Blossoms rebounding ability was just too dominant.

Cooper Nelson, a 6-foot-4 230-pound sophomore has been seeing some quality time on the hardwood.

“Cooper is coming around for us,” Bruns said. “He is going to start hitting from underneath before long and he is giving us some good hustle despite fighting through a toe injury.”

Blooming Prairie 59, NRHEG 38

NRHEG 17 21 — 38

Blooming Prairie 27 32 — 59

Blooming Prairie scoring: Zellmer 24, Clark 12, Ingvaldson 12, Moe 4, Johnson 4, Nelson 3.

NRHEG scoring: Firme 13, Billing 9, Camerer 6, Hagen 4, Ramaker 2, Warke 2.