Turnovers.

That was the story of Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s 20-16 road loss to Lakeview Friday night.

“We had five turnovers and two of them came in pretty tough situations — they were inside their 10-yard line,” MVL head coach Jim Buboltz said. “Two potential touchdowns taken away. We just tried to do to much — we had early-season type mistakes. We had four turnovers in the first half and we were ahead. Our defense played a lot better than what we gave them credit for.”

The Chargers scored 16 points in the first half but failed to score the rest of the game.

“We had a tough time moving the ball in the second half,” Buboltz said. “They made some adjustments and we ran into a lot of players cramping up. We had to get a lot of new kids in there and that is tough in the first game — we had freshmen out there giving us downs in their first game ever.

“But we held the lead for the majority of the second half. We gave up that late touchdown and that was a heart-breaker. But it was a lesson for the guys about finishing a game and pushing to the end.”

Buboltz said that after the game, he talked with senior captain Colton Collum.

“He (Collum) has been in a lot of games for me in four years and he said that the best part about it was that all of the mistakes tonight can be fixed,” Buboltz said. “Those were great words from a senior captain to help lead our team forward.”

Buboltz said that he was happy with the play of sophomore quarterback Luke Thompson, who was making his first varsity start.

“He is so exciting out on the field. He did make some first-game mistakes,” Buboltz said. “The mistakes were because he was trying to do to much. He is so exciting with the ball in his hands. Running and throwing, I was very excited. We did have a couple of dropped balls, too. But again, these things can be fixed.”

Buboltz said that the players on the offensive line also saw time on the defensive line.

“We need to find more depth there. I felt that Luke Peterson played well on both sides of the ball — he is going to have himself a big year.”

NEW ULM STEEL, CHIPPEWA IN CAMP: The combined New Ulm Steel and Chippewa Steel hockey teams training camp Friday and Saturday saw 32 NAHL players from Chippewa and 24 from the NA3HL New Ulm Steel participate.

“Chippewa has been going for about two weeks already and New Ulm will officially start practice September 5th,” New Ulm Steel General Manager Bryant Black said. “We wanted to bring in everyone for six hours of ice each day for conditioning. Even though we are two teams we want to act as one.”

While no rosters are set, some of the new players that fans here in New Ulm will probably see are Parker Dorn, who comes from Ashwaubenon High School in Wisconsin.

“He is a 2001 birth year — Kyle Espensen from Windom and Glavine Schugel from New Ulm (who will rejoin New Ulm HIgh School when high school hockey starts), Denis Denisov from Russia and Tae-Jean Evans from Alaska. We have kids from all over.”

Returning from last year are Corey Stormer, Keagan Baumann, Michael Savelkoul, Brian Oare and James Royce.

“Those are the only four coming back from last year’s New Ulm team.”