Minnesota Valley Lutheran head football coach Jim Buboltz said that Friday’s 34-16 road loss at the hands of Pipestone was not one of his team’s best games.

“It was easily our worst effort of the year,” Buboltz said. “We got off to a bad start — we were down 28-0 on the first play of the second quarter. We had three fumbles and a blocked punt lost. Now we are playing from behind.

“From the second quarter on we were fine, but we have to start better than we did. That was the game that we had to win and we should have won.”

Buboltz said that some of the seniors may be dealing with two years of the demons against Pipestone — having lost twice to the Arrows in the playoffs.

“They may have been wondering what is going on here again,” he said.

And Friday’s start was one Buboltz had never seen before as coach.

“In my 25 years, it was easily the worst start that we have had to a game,” Buboltz said. “Maybe it is the long bus ride — we would have a good drive going and then the ball pops out.”

When asked if he felt that the rocky start may have been a carryover from the 36-0 loss to Luverne week earlier, Buboltz said it may have been a factor.

“Some of our kids maybe questioned themselves after that loss,” he said. “We had a lot of mental errors and that is not our team.”

Buboltz thought that the Chargers did regroup as the game progressed.

“We got back into the game — we did not give up and that would have been easy to do. We came back right away with two scores — Kyler [Flunker] had six catches for 122 yards and two touchdowns and two 2-point conversions. But there are still a lot of questions to answer today.”

One of those questions is the fast start the Chargers had, going 3-0 and dominating opponents on the scoreboard 111-22 to start the season.

But the last two games have seen a complete 180-degree swing as the Chargers have been outscored 70-16.

“You are dealing with high school kids — we have had three massive injuries with Zander [Jacobson], Will Kaesermann and Justin Ziemer — Justin was our leading tackler on our defense,” Buboltz said. “So our kids are scrambling a little bit trying to figure out what happened. To go from that group that was super confident and everything was going right to a lot of things going wrong in a couple of weeks — that is going to test their character a little bit.”

Buboltz said that he and his coaching staff will sit down and talk this week.

“We have some ideas — we will bring kids in [Monday] and have a team meeting,” he said. “We have some questions that have to get answered. I have a great coaching staff — they are a great group of guys who have been with me a long time. Some days you are right there and some days it takes a little bit more.”

EAGLES FALL TO CARDINALS

New Ulm High School head football coach Derek Lieser said that he has never been a part of a high school football game that had two 30-minute weather delays.

“That kind of set us up for a night of adversity,” he said.

“Unfortunately, it was a game where the score (42-14) does not indicate how close of a game it was. I am proud of the way that the kids battled. Fairmont made a few more plays than we did and the score reflected that.”

Lieser said that the delays were tough to get through.

“I was a part of a playoff game at MCC [Murray County Central] where we called the game at halftime and had to resume the next day. Football is such a game of emotion — you get warmed up and ready to go and then to have two delays — that Fairmont had to go through, too — it is a long time to decompress. You can’t prepare for that.

“We had some positive steps this game. We were down by one score before they scored again to go up by two scores before halftime. They scored again in the third quarter, but we responded and made it a two-score game again. It was never a game that was out of reach. They had a punt return for a touchdown and a pick-six for a touchdown that inflates the score for them.”

Lieser was happy with the play of wide receiver Zach Hubbard, who caught a 70-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Ayden Jensen.

“He ran a slant rout and out-ran two defenders. It was a nice throw from Ayden — good protection from our line — and he made the catch and just outran people. He had over 90 yards in receiving. He has done a nice job for us this year.”

New Ulm’s schedule does not get any easier as they play St. Peter, Jordan and Marshall in their next three games.

“If we can win Friday, we are putting us potentially to be four or maybe a three seed in the section depending on how Willmar (1-3) finishes out. Our next three games are tough.”

GREYHOUNDS MOVE UP IN RANKINGS

New Ulm Cathedral’s dominating 49-14 win over Madelia earned the Greyhounds their fourth win of the season against only one loss.

The trio of junior running backs Rylan Koopmann, Josh Bentler and Jaden Helget continue to improve.

It took the Greyhounds only 11 plays Friday to take a 22-6 lead and then 10 plays to add two more touchdowns for a 30-point lead.

WHERE THEY SIT

The Greyhounds’ win also strengthens the spot they sit at in the section as they are currently the No. 2 seed in Section 2 Nine-Man behind Red Rock Central.

Minnesota Valley Lutheran currently is third in Section 3AA behind Jackson County Central, who the Chargers host Friday, and Redwood Valley.

New Ulm High School is third in Section 3AAAA behind Hutchinson and Marshall and just ahead of St. Peter, who the Eagles host Friday.