New Ulm Cathedral head football coach Denny Lux said that the biggest differences between last week’s opening season loss to Adrian and a win on Friday against Sleepy Eye were overall confidence and some personnel moves.

“We did move some players around and now I think that we have players now in positions that fit their personalities,” he said. “I think that maybe we were trying to fit players into positions that they were not ready for. And the second thing was that (when Sleepy Eye took an 8-0 lead) we did not hang our head. We came right back and scored.”

Cathedral came back to win the game 29-16.

Some of the personnel changes came when Lux moved Ben Schumacher, who played both ways last week, to only split end.

“He did a fantastic job catching the football for us,” Lux said. “Brendan O’Brien was also playing both ways for us and this week he just played tight end.”

Each year, Cathedral seems to have a back that emerges and Friday night it may have been junior John Gillis, who scored three touchdowns.

“Anyone who has watched us play knows that we need to have our fullback always be a threat,” said Lux. “He is getting better and he understands what he has to do. It was really nice that we were able to get the downfield blocks for him to break that (46-yard) run. Now the team knows what the concept is with the fullback trap.”

MISTAKES HURT EAGLES; Last year, the New Ulm Eagles lost to Tri City United 49-7. Friday night mistakes by the Eagles hurt them as they fell 22-6 to the third-ranked Titans due in large part by mistakes.

“It was a tough game,” said New Ulm coach Corey Kneeshaw, whose team trailed only 8-6 going into the fourth quarter. “Our defense played great – they gave us a chance to win. But offensively we could not get out of our own way. We kept making mistakes after mistakes. We had snap issues, our quarterback (Alex Portner) not handling the snaps the right way. We had guys going the wrong way – we had to many missed assignments offensively. We kept putting ourselves in second and long or third and long situations and that made us rely more on the pass.”

TCU scored on its first possession for an 8-0 lead. That would be its last score until it scored on two long runs in the fourth quarter.

“We wanted to give ourselves a chance to win late in the game and we gave ourselves that,” he said. “We gave ourselves that but we could not put it together offensively. We will look at the film, analyze it and make the necessary adjustments that we need to make going forward so this does not happen again.There was a lot of mental mistakes as well as physical mistakes. It was not that we were unprepared for what they were going to do, we did not execute like we needed to. We had a drive where we got down to their 30-yard line but then mistake, mistake and now we have a third-and-19 situation.”

CHARGERS LOSE ROAD GAME: Minnesota Valley Lutheran head football coach Jim Buboltz said that a fast start by his team for a 6-0 lead after the first quarter against Wabasso. “But the wheels kind of came off in the second and third quarters,” he said as the Chargers lost 48-14. “You cannot do that against them – they are too good for that. I am happy with the way that we started out and we had a better effort than we did in week one. We took some positive steps – the score does not say it but we took some positive steps.”

He said his team had costly fumbles in the second and third quarters “that were uncharacteristic for us. But it was not the turnovers but rather they are a very good football team.”

He said the positives for his team was that they moved the ball well.

“We threw the ball well. All in all we just have to put together four quarters right now.”

MVL did get good news as transfer Josiah Glowicki from Luther Prep was ruled eligible by the Minnesota State High School League.. He is a 6-foot 1, 195-pound junior running back

STEEL SCRIMMAGE DRAWS CROWD: The New Ulm Steel Junior A hockey team’s scrimmage at the New Ulm Civic Center Friday drew a crowd of around 250 people.