New Ulm Cathedral head football coach Denny Lux said that he was happy with his team’s play Thursday night in a 32-28 road loss to a perennially strong Dawson-Boyd team.

This was the first-ever meeting between the two schools.

“We were down 16-0 after the first quarter and then 24-14 at halftime,” he said. “But then we took a lead about halfway through the fourth quarter. We stayed with our game plan — stayed with our offense and we got better as the game progressed. You could see the momentum swinging our way in the second half but they ran a play through a hole and we could not get to him. They are the fastest team we will see all year.”

Cathedral did establish a solid running game behind an almost new offensive line and with two new running backs in Tony Geiger, who played left guard last season, and sophomore Eric Furth. Geiger rushed for 149 yards and three touchdowns, while Furth ended with 177 yards and a score.

“Our young line picked it up and they opened up some holes,” Lux said. “We started using Eric Furth more from the second quarter on and he was able to give us more production off-tackle.”

Lux said that Furth has good speed.

“He ran track last year (co-op with Minnesota Valley Lutheran) and the track coaches there said that he was running with the seniors real well. Our offensive line came together and gave us a lead.

“We had 366 yards of offense and they had 280. We put ourselves in a position to win, but it did not work out. It was a game of inches.”

Lux added that many questions were answered after the loss to Dawson-Boyd.

“This game answered a lot of questions in our minds and now we are home for our next four games, so we feel good about that.”

EAGLES HAVE BRIGHT SPOTS: Despite a 16-6 loss to Redwood Valley, who went 10-1 last season and won the Section 3-AA title, New Ulm High School head football coach Eric Kaufmann was optimistic about his team’s future.

“We do not have our full playbook in yet and our full potential of what we can do,” he said. “And once we get to that point, we will be better — we will get better every week. There is no doubt about that.”

The Eagles had to contend with a Redwood Valley offensive line led by 6-foot-4, 280-pound Chad Maddock.

“He is an All-State wrestler — we knew they were going to run behind him,” Kaufmann said. “But I thought that Russ (Hellendrung, defensive tackle) did a good job on him.”

Kaufmann said that after his team’s performance in the opening game, he would give them a C+ grade.

“I will never give them an ‘A’ no matter how good we do. It is hard say and I do not want to degrade them because they played so hard. We can get better and we are going to play better teams than Redwood. We know that we need to get better.”