Photo by Travis Rosenau: Fairmont's Reed Johnson slices towards the hoop during Friday night's contest at New Ulm High School.

NEW ULM — Fairmont’s 6-foot-10 forward Logan Junkermeier is already used to having a target on his back.

But with every game the Cardinals add to their win streak, the target gets bigger and bigger.

Junkermeier faced a physical New Ulm Eagles defense full of double teams throughout Friday night’s Big South Conference boys basketball crossover game, but he still managed to lead his team to their 12th win in a row with a 59-49 win.

Junkermeier finished with 17 points, eight rebounds and three assists as the Cardinals moved to 17-2 on the season.

“We knew that New Ulm’s a very good team,” Junkermeier said. “We knew they were gonna come out and play hard on their home floor. They’ve got a big home court advantage in my opinion. We knew that they were going to be very physical with us and we had to keep the ball moving, try and get them out of locations and then try to get easy buckets off of that.”

Reed Johnson added 15 points and nine rebounds for the Cardinals, while Joe Long had 12 points and Joseph Hackett added 8 points and eight rebounds.

Junkermeier was relatively safe when catching passes at the high post, but when he took it to the hoop, the Eagles often swarmed him and made it tough on him. Regardless, Junkermeier did what he could with the room he had and ended up with one of the biggest buckets of the night, a reverse layup with 1:13 left to put his Cardinals up 54-47.

“We just respect every team that we face, knowing that no matter what’s going to happen, it’s more than likely going to be a game,” Junkermeier said. “When we come into these games where we might have a better record, we just rely on our defense because you know they’re going to be coming at us harder just because we have that big target on our back.”

New Ulm (10-10) was led by Joey Wise’s 16 points, while Mitchell Hopp had 11 points and Tanner Backer had 7 points.

Eagles head coach Michael Poncelet was happy with his team’s ability to defend Junkermeier and make it tough on him, but he said too many turnovers and a bad night on offense hurt the Eagles in the end.

“Him scoring 17, that should put us in position to win,” Poncelet said. “We held them in the 50s, that’s one of our best defensive performances all season. They struggled with what we gave them on defense, but we couldn’t score.”

Junkermeier’s second bucket of the game put his team up 13-6, forcing Poncelet to burn a timeout with 13:01 left in the half. His players responded out of the timeout with a 7-0 run to tie the game. First it was Noah Mertz inside with a bucket before a 3 and steal for a layup by Mitchell Hopp tied it up.

Jordan Thompson drained a corner 3 to stop the run and give Fairmont the lead back, but Wise and Owen Castleman scored to put the Eagles up 17-16 and the teams trade buckets before Mitchell Hopp found Jayden Broste open in the corner for a 3 and 22-18 Eagles lead.

A 3 by Wise moments later gave New Ulm its biggest lead of the night, 25-20, but the Cardinals ended the half up 28-27 after a Junkermeier and-one and another free throw in the final minute.

A bucket in the paint by Backer put the Eagles back in front to open the second half, but Long’s corner 3 ignited a 7-0 Cardinals run to put them up 35-29. Buckets by Backer and Wise had New Ulm down 37-35 to force a Fairmont timeout, and Junkermeier and Johnson scored back-to-back baskets inside for a 41-35 lead.

The Eagles cut it down to a 3-point game late after Hubbard found Wise inside for 2, but another Fairmont timeout helped settle the Cardinals down as Johnson scored inside and Junkermeier followed with his big reverse layup for a 54-47 lead. Wise scored once more for New Ulm, but the Eagles were forced to foul in the final minute, tacking on 5 more points to the Cardinals’ total from the foul line.

“I’m super happy with how we’re playing,” Junkermeier said. “It’s great to get 12 [consecutive wins] and it feels really good, but we know that going forward that the more we get, the bigger the target gets.”

Fairmont is at Worthington on Monday night for another Big South crossover game.