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NEW ULM -- The second week of high school football on the local scene sees home doubleheader football Friday for fans of New Ulm Cathedral and Minnesota Valley Lutheran at Johnson Field.
Meanwhile, the New Ulm High School Eagles head south to battle Albert Lea Friday.
CEDAR MOUNTAIN (0-1) AT NEW ULM CATHEDRAL (0-1) 4 P.M., JOHNSON FIELD
Both teams are coming off of first game losses with the Cougars falling 31-0 to Mountain Lake Area at home and Cathedral dropping a 28-14 road contest to Edgerton.
Cathedral head coach Denny Lux said that the first thing that he noticed about the Cougars is how well they get their receivers open. "They run some crossing routes -- they set up things to get those receivers open," he said. "That has been their trademark the last few seasons."
Lux said that the Cougars employ aggressive defensive ends.
"And their linebackers step up real quick so they are your typical Cedar Mountain team that can open up things. They have things that they can go down the field with or they can run the ball -- it is a game where defensively we have to cover the whole field and be ready for any situation they might throw at us."
Lux said that his defensive front needs to get pressure.
"That was one of Mountain Lake's game plan as they blitzed on the weakside."
Lux added that the Cougars have speed in their defensive secondary.
"They play pretty much man defense and their linebackers step up and fill the holes," he said. "They may play a few different [defensive] fronts, but we know with our different offensive sets that they will match up accordingly, so it comes down to execution and doing our job -- we need to stat off of the penalty side -- that was a tough one for us last week. We found ourselves in the hole on first and second down because of penalties."
Lux said that his team wants to come out and play with confidence Friday afternoon.
"With the Edgerton game under our belt, we might move a guy around this week yet, but we think we are settled in on what we at on offense. And it is plus for us offensively to have that depth in the backfield."
Lux said that the key to Friday's game will be not taking penalties. "If we do not take penalties and keep our drives going, that will be a huge part of the game."
LAKE CRYSTAL WELLCOME MEMORIAL (0-1) AT MINNESOTA VALLEY LUTHERAN (1-0) FRIDAY 8 P.M., JOHNSON FIELD
Checking the scores from the first week, fans will see that Lake Crystal lost 44-0. But then comes seeing who they played.
Jackson County Central.
"That is a tough game to start the season off with," Chargers head coach Jim Buboltz said as his team is coming off of a 28-0 win over Sibley East. "But I did see quite a few positives from [Lake Crystal] especially on the offensive side of the ball.
"They have gone to a Wing-T offense now and in doing that that brings in the fullback trap and the outside belly off of that. They run it hard and well.
"And they throw in a play-action pass off of that -- they showed some success on offense."
Buboltz said that it is hard to gauge a team off of a 44-0 loss to JCC. "Because they are going to do that to a lot of teams. You do not get a great read because of who they played. But you look for the successes that they had and they had plenty of them -- they played pretty well despite the score."
Buboltz's game plan Friday and for all season is to eat up yardage on the ground.
"We want to keep the ball moving on the ground and keep attacking in different spots on the field and control the game," he said.
One of the players who had a good game offensively in the win over Sibley East was freshman Chase Tweit.
"He reminds me a lot of Ben Price when Ben was a freshman -- he is very big in the weight room and works hard -- he has been working towards this for quite a few years," Buboltz said. "Football is his passion. He runs hard and runs well. We need to continue to work with him to find the right running lane as he continues to grow."
Despite a first-game shutout, Buboltz said that there can be improvement on the defense.
"We need to get our linebackers and linemen to work together and flow to their responsibility -- every week you can get better. We need to recognize that Lake Crystal played a pretty good game against Jackson and we are going to have to be ready."
NEW ULM HIGH SCHOOL (1-0) AT ALBERT LEA (0-1) FRIDAY 7 P.M., JIM GUSTAFSON FIELD
Last week, Albert Lea lost 15-13 on a last-second field goal at St. Peter.
"They are going to be hungry and it is the home opener for them." New Ulm Eagles head coach Derek Lieser said. "Paul Dunn [Tigers head coach] historically has run a triple-option offense. They did do a little more spread offense and throw the ball down the field more against St. Peter with their receivers, who have some length and speed. And we know that their quarterback is elusive, so when they do run that option that we know we have our responsibilities down because all it takes is one person not doing his assignment."
In New Ulm's 33-14 home win last week over Belle Plaine, the Eagles' defense forced six Tigers turnovers. Lieser said that that kind of performance can carry over.
"That can give a defense a lot of confidence and it gives our offense the opportunity to have the ball," he said. "I do not think that I have ever been on the plus-6 side of a game."
He said that while the defense played well last week, this is a new week with a new opponent.
"Last week does not matter now because if we are not prepared, it can go sideways and go backwards quickly," he said. "We need to be prepared for things -- last week on Daine Barie's first interception of the game, we knew what they wanted to do in a certain situation and Daine jumped the route. That happens because of the work you did during the week."
Lieser said he was "pleasantly surprised" by quarterback Preston Holberg.
"He had good control of the offensive huddle and he threw the ball well (162 yards and three touchdowns) and he looked like a third-year starter," Lieser said. "You would never have thought that that was his first career varsity start. We were happy with the job he did taking care of the ball. Overall we could have not asked for more from Preston."
Lieser said that owning the time of possession and winning the turnover battle and tackling well are important.
"If we can do those things, we can give ourselves a chance to go into Homecoming next week with some confidence," he said.