Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm Cathedral’s Jevan Wilfahrt looks to hurdle a Martin County West player during the first half of a Southwest District football game Friday night at Johnson Field in New Ulm.

NEW ULM — New Ulm Cathedral’s defense did all it could to keep unbeaten Martin County West in check during the first half, but the Mavericks’ defense took things a step further and spoiled the Greyhounds’ homecoming with a 43-0 shutout win in a Southwest District, East Subdistrict football game Friday night at Johnson Field.

Cathedral (1-4, 1-3) forced MCW (5-0, 5-0) to punt on its first drive and ended up getting its offense inside the MCW 25-yard line on three separate occasions during the first half. The Greyhounds were stifled each time they threatened to score, however, thanks in large part to an MCW defensive line that was led by 6-3, 230-pound Max Olson.

“Their defensive line, that No. 65 [Olson], he’s a senior this year, he’s a heck of a player,” Cathedral head coach Denny Lux said. “We knew that coming in because he was really tough last year. He forced us to double team him and that kind of allowed them to get a little bit more linebacker flow and of course they were playing their safety up tight and he made a number of plays. But their team speed at the line of scrimmage, we just couldn’t combat that.”

After MCW’s first punt of the game, Cathedral ended its first drive with a negative of 13 yards on its first drive before punting the ball away. MCW ended up taking its next drive into the end zone after a 5-yard TD pass from quarterback Zach Anderson to Wyatt Williamson.

After another Greyhounds punt, Thomas Finstad, who was in on nine tackles, sacked Anderson and caused a fumble that was recovered by Ben Blomberg at the MCW 28-yard line, giving the Greyhounds a good chance to get points on the board.

Four plays later, though, the Greyhounds turned the ball over on downs. MCW was quick to respond with its biggest play of the game, a 72-yard touchdown run down the left sideline by Joseph Forsberg to lead 14-0 with 10:42 left in second quarter.

Jevan Wilfahrt, who led the Greyhounds on offense with 10 carries for 57 yards and two catches for 24 yards, had a big 25-yard run to get the Greyhounds to the MCW 40 on the following drive. After working their way into the red zone, the Greyhounds hit a wall and finished the drive by taking a sack for a turnover on downs.

Cathedral had one more shot to score late in the first half after Wilfahrt intercepted a deep ball. Wilfahrt then drew a pass interference that put Cathedral at the MCW 30-yard line. But with just two seconds on the clock after that, a throw to Isaac Miller in the end zone by quarterback Jake Finstad fell incomplete and MCW led 14-0 at halftime.

After the Greyhounds were again forced to punt on their first drive of the second half, the Mavericks got a return of 28 yards to set up shop at the Cathedral 23-yard line. A few plays later, MCW was in the end zone again after a TD keeper by Anderson.

Later in the third quarter, a high snap to Cathedral punter Levi Jakes led to a blocked punt by Cameron Meyer deep in Cathedral territory. Riley Allen recovered the ball in the end zone to put MCW up 28-0.

MCW scored two more touchdowns after that in the fourth quarter on the way to the dominant win.

“Against this team, we couldn’t afford any penalties, we couldn’t afford any mis-snaps, those things are going to cause us problems, and they did,” Lux said. “The first half we had some drives that looked like — we were starting to frustrate them, because they moved No. 65 around a little bit to try to stop some runs. But we would get a penalty or we would take ourselves out of that scoring drive position.

“I really feel for the players because I just couldn’t find an answer for the guys. We tried, we went into our double slot, I tried to spread them out a little bit, but a lot of times there just isn’t an answer for that team speed that we might be up against.”

Joe Gillis was in on 17 tackles to lead Cathedral defensively, while Landon Klawitter was in on seven.

Cathedral next takes on Minnesota Valley Lutheran in the Chargers’ homecoming game Friday night at Johnson Field.