NEW ULM - Less than three weeks ago, New Ulm Cathedral traveled to Morgan to take on Cedar Mountain-Comfrey in a key Southern Minnesota Conference football game that saw the Greyhounds come away with a 28-12 win.

Saturday night it will be survival that will be on the line when these two teams clash in a Section 2A semi-final contest at Johnson Field at 7 p.m.

While it is a game on Halloween night, Cathedral coach Denny Lux knows this game will have no tricks for either team and will only see one team coming away with a treat in advancing.

"We know that they are a real good football team," Lux said. "They do some things on offense that keeps you spread out and on defense, they play very aggressive."

Both tams got to this point with relatively easy wins in the first round. Cathedral blasted Granada-Huntley-East Chain-Martin Luther 59-6 while the Cougars blanked a very good Mankato Loyola squad 35-0.

"They [Cedar Mountain/Comfrey] play very well at home so I was not surprised that they did the job that they did," Lux said.

Lux said that the last time that the two teams met, Cedar Mountain/Comfrey came out in a wildcat formation.

But he knows that the focus of the Cedar Mountain/Comfrey offense is centered around quarterback Dalton Kleinschmidt.

"He throws out of the shotgun and he has some good receivers to throw to."

Like any team meeting another for the second time, the Greyhound defense may well make the appropriate adjustments for this game.

"John Miheve [Greyhound defensive co-ordinator] will look at film of our last game and make changes," Lux said. "We were fortunate in our game with GHEC/ML that they had a good quarterback that threw the ball well so we did get some work in our secondary and we can use that going into this game."

In the win over GHEC/ML, the Greyhounds were without starters Frank Johnson and Nick Simon because of illness and Greg Genelin due to a concussion. Lux said that the Greyhounds are like every other school in the state in trying to keep the kids healthy.

"There is kind of a fine line in as far as how hard you work them in practice and trying to keep them healthy with this flu bug going around," he said. "You need to change your coaching philosophy a little bit."

Lux feels that playing at home will be an advantage for the Greyhounds.

"We will have a big crowd. We worked all year to get this home field advantage for the playoffs. We play well at home."

REINARTS OK: Lux said that Mackenzie Reinarts, who was injured late in the game with GHEC/ML is fine.

"He had a slight concussion so he will not dress on Saturday," Lux said.

CHARGERS MISS POTENTIAL: Minnesota Valley Lutheran head football coach Jim Buboltz said that this year's team did not reach their full potential.

"We had a different group of players that had trouble seeing just how talented they really were," he said. "We were a much better team than what we showed [going 4-5]. This was a team that had talent and we saw that in the games where we executed well. We could have used more depth and size but talent-wise it was there.We also lacked consistency all year."

Buboltz said that next year's team "is going to have to work on the mental aspect of the game more and more. It cost us so many games this year."

The Chargers do have good players back in Cole Brown, Brandon Johnson and Dusty Compart.

"We have potential with them along with Seth Wendland who had a big year this season. We also have some younger linemen back in Michael Martens and Brady Tetzloff. So there is potential there - we need to get them in the weight room."

He also feels that the mindset needs to change.

"They need to know that now is their time," Buboltz said. "They know what did not go well this year so we need to work on that.

"We need to get that attitude change around and get our concentration level back to where it needs to be," Buboltz said. "Talent-wise we are fine. Our freshman team went 5-1 and they have a lot of talent sp the future is bright for Charger football."

EAGLES BATTLE PUBLICITY: For the New Ulm Eagle football team, their trip to Hutchinson had more television cameras rolling than a trip to the Prep Bowl finals would of had.

"Before we left for Hutchinson, we had TV cameras and reporters in the parking lot and when we got to Hutch we had more TV stations there and asked the kids why they wanted to keep playing despite the loss of starters - it was a different kind of game," Bute said.

Bute said that he was very proud of the young men who played in the game.

"They did not quit in the game," Bute said. "And hats off to the Hutchinson players and coaches for their sportsmanship. They knew about the circumstances for us surrounding this game and they kept things in check. Andy Rostberg [Hutchinson head football coach] is a class act."

Bute said that he felt sad that [the bad publicity] is what the people around the state are going to perceive of all of the kids in New Ulm.

"The kids in New Ulm are fundamentally good young people. I truly believe that they will follow the rules that you have. Ninety-five percent of our kids are good young people and good community members. But if you do not have established guidelines or do not enforce those, kids tend to take liberties. Unfortunately, this came to a head and went in the wrong direction."

Bute felt that sportsmanship is an issue not only here in New Ulm but also in schools around Minnesota.

"We have adults that are doing this at games and take lengths with sportsmanship. We need to have a focus on sportsmanship not only with kids but also adults."