NEW RICHLAND– Both the New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva Panthers and the United South Central Rebels boys’ basketball teams seem to be hitting their strides toward the end of January.

The Panthers entered Friday’s matchup having won five of their last six, while the Rebels entered having won four of their last six.

Only one team would pick up a win on Friday as NRHEG hosted USC in New Richland.

Evan Ferber scored 17 points, while Tyler Sorenson recorded 13 points as the Panthers defeated the Rebels 57-55.

USC played the game without two of their top players as Kyle Bauman and Riley Niebuhr both sat the game out due to illness.

“This was a very nice win for our team,” NRHEG coach Pat Churchill said. “We have won six out of our last seven and the kids are playing their best ball of the year.”

While for USC, the Rebels struggled with finishing around the hoop and trying to get acclimated to running their offense without their top two post players.

“We had to become more perimeter oriented,” USC coach Rob Stevermer said with Bauman and Niebuhr out. “Were not used to executing like that yet. New Richland did a nice job of getting up on us and defending us on the perimeter. It took us a little while to get adjusted to that. Shots weren’t falling for us and we kind of rushed some things that weren’t there.”

In the first half of play, their was a lot of back and forth action between the teams.

USC got five points from Cole Stencel early to jump out to a 9-4 lead. The Panthers then scored the next four points to cut the lead to one at 9-8.

Throughout the first half, neither team would have a lead of more than four points.

NRHEG grabbed the lead with 1:56 remaining on a free throw by Sam Lundberg and eventually went into the lockeroom with a 25-24 halftime lead.

Perhaps the key to the game happened at the start of the second half.

The Panthers defense came alive and limited the Rebels to only five points in the first ten minutes of the second half and NRHEG used a 16-5 run that gave the Panthers a 41-29 lead.

“The key to the game was our defense to start the second half,” Churchill said. “We held them to five points in the first ten minutes of the second half and we were able to build a double digit lead.”

During that stretch, the Rebels came up short on some possessions and had trouble finishing shots.

“They key was early in the second half,” Stevermer said. “We kind went a lot of possessions without finishing some shots. We had some shots that were make able, but we didn’t make them. We missed a few free throws and we were just stuck on 29 points for a while and they got ahead of us a little bit.”

Facing a 12 point deficit, the Rebels started to climb back into the game later on in the second half.

USC chipped away at the lead and eventually cut the lead to three points on a Stencel 3-pointer as NRHEG led 53-50 with under 52 seconds left in the game.

After two Panther free throws, Trey Allis scored a lay-up with about 10 second left in the game to cut the lead down to three.

The Panther’s Evan Ferber clinched the game as he hit two free throws with under five second to go as NRHEG secured the 57-55 victory.

“I give credit to the kids. They worked hard and kept digging back into it,” Stevermer said. “But we had too many errors and we fell behind and weren’t able to overcome it.”

For NRHEG, Churchill says he likes how his team is playing and hopes they can continue to improve.

“I can’t give enough credit to our kids for how well they played,” Churchill said. “Hopefully we can continue to improve and come March we could be a dangerous team to play.”

Ferber led the Panthers with 17 points, while Sorenson scored 13 points.

USC was led by Cole Stencel, who recorded a game high 19 points.

Chris Melby finished with 15 points and Coleman Bushlack finished with 10 points and a team high 11 rebounds.

USC and NRHEG are both back in action on Tuesday.

USC hosts Waterville-Elysian-Morristown with tipoff set for 7:15 p.m., while NRHEG hosts Blooming Prairie with tipoff also set for 7:15 p.m.