MONTICELLO — When the buckets aren’t falling, good teams find other ways to win. The Ponies did just that in a 51-39 victory over Brodhead in a nonconference game Dec. 27.

“A lot of times games like this are ugly and oftentimes it’s won by the team that takes care of the ball better and gets the ball to the rim,” Monticello coach Mark Olson said. “We didn’t shoot that well tonight, but we did enough offensively to take care of it.”

Neither team hit a shot from beyond the arc, but it was Monticello that found balance inside. The slashing ability of senior Jeffrey Ace and sophomore Peter Gustafson complimented the bullying play in the blocks by junior Reece Rufer. Ace finished with 16 points, while Gustafson had 19 and Rufer added eight.

“I know they are doubling me a lot, so I’m looking to pass,” Rufer said. “And with Pete down there it’s a lot of help because now they have to play true and they can’t double team guys because we can pass and we have shooters all around.”

Ace and Gustafson found their stride in the second half, combining for 21 of the Ponies’ 29 points.

Brodhead came out sluggish to open the game, falling behind 8-0 in the 4-plus minutes of the game. Enter senior Dawson Van Whye.

Van Whye came in off the bench and immediately found success penetrating to the hole and fighting Rufer and Gustafson for rebounds. Van Whye would lead a 14-6 run over the next eight minutes, scoring 11 points himself to tie the game at 14 with 5:35 remaining before halftime.

“I was just trying to be aggressive,” Van Whye said. “They were playing off, so I was trying to get some good post looks from my teammates and score from the post.”

Van Whye was more than just a point-scorer in the stretch, with his defensive intensity and action on the boards bringing up the spirits for the rest of the Cardinals squad.

“He did a nice job. I thought he had good energy all night,” Brodhead coach Nick Jarvis said.

The Ponies rallied back ahead and closed the half on an 8-0 run to take a 22-14 advantage into the locker room.

“I just feel like we were really meshing well as a team, helping everybody. It’s been a few games now where I felt like we’re getting closer, and I thought tonight our team defense and understanding that it’s not just 1-on-1 matchups was better,” Rufer said.

In the second half, Brodhead deployed a 1-3-1 defense that gave the Ponies fits. With Van Whye (6-3), Cody Malcook (6-3) and Dawson McGinty (6-7) in the middle, the Cardinals were able to keep Monticello out of the paint and clumsy with the ball. Monticello had five turnovers in its first six possessions.

But Brodhead’s offense still struggled to get going, even after an apparent over-and-back wasn’t called and McGinty scored moments later to bring his team to within four at 24-20 with 14:50 to go in the game. Monticello would begin to figure out the offense — at least just enough to keep Brodhead at arm’s length on the scoreboard.

“That 1-3-1, that was a grind. It wasn’t pretty, but we got just enough buckets out of it to keep the lead,” Olson said.

The Cardinals only got back to within four points once more the rest of the game, when Van Whye, who finished with 19, stole an inbound in the back court and laid it in to make it 32-28.

“We didn’t do a very good job of executing when we had opportunities. They played really hard, I felt like they played harder going for loose balls — I felt they got most of the 50/50 balls. They have a nice group and took advantage of some things,” Jarvis said. “We just have to go back to work. We have to work hard every day if we want to improve.”

Brodhead used a press in the final minutes, again causing headaches for Monticello for multiple possessions. Leading 43-37 with 1:20 left, Olson called a full timeout after a Brodhead free throw to set up a press break. The drawn-up play worked to perfection with a homerun pass to Rufer down the court that set up Gustafson for an easy bounce pass layup. From there, the Ponies hit 6 of 7 free throws in the final 1:08 to seal the win.

“We finally found a press break that we liked and that took the lid off of it. I think that long throw put us at ease finally and let us finish the game,” Olson said.

Connor Green was the only other Cardinal in double figures, scoring all 11 of his points in the second half. Brodhead was just 13 of 23 from the line in the game, while Monticello was 11 of 18 overall.

Van Whye said that despite the loss, the team saw some positives that can be taken away.

“We never really press before, so it’s probably a whole new life for us that we can start pressing teams,” Van Whye said. “We just have to take away positives, so we’ll probably start zoning and pressing teams more.”