Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Minnesota Valley Lutheran quarterback Kaden Peterson reaches the ball across the goal line for a touchdown during a South District football game with Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial on Friday night at Johnson Field in New Ulm.

NEW ULM — Kaden Peterson and Ben Price scored fourth-quarter touchdowns as Minnesota Valley Lutheran improved to 2-0 on the season with an 18-6 win over Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial Friday night at Johnson Field in a South District football game.

Peterson also added a second-quarter scoring run.

Peterson scored on runs of 5 and 1 yards while Price scampered in on a 3-yard spurt.

Nathan Sickler scored the lone Knights touchdown on a 9-yard run with 43 seconds left in the game.

“I am very happy with the win,” Chargers coach Jim Buboltz said. “The boys fought hard but I think that we missed some opportunities early where we could have capitalized on. But that did not get them down by any means — we had a nice defensive game effort, especially in the second half.”

Neither team got anything going offensively, with the Knights turning the ball over twice in the first quarter. But twice the Knights’ defense held the Chargers on fourth-down plays.

The Knights also were their own worst enemy with four holding calls.

The Chargers, who play at Le Sueur-Henderson next Friday, got on the board midway through the second quarter.

Following an 18-yard punt return from Brennan Bendix, Peterson engineered a seven-play, 33-yard drive that ended when Peterson capped off the drive with a 5-yard run for a 6-0 lead.

That score was the only scoring until the final quarter.

Buboltz was happy that his defense was forcing first-half turnovers.

“And we did not give them back,” he said. “When you are plus-three in the game.”

MVL began its second scoring drive late in the third quarter following a Caleb Hunter recovery of a Knights fumble.

This time it was a 48-yard, 10-play march with the trio of Connor Bode, Price and Peterson sharing the carries that included a 14-yard run from Price that moved the ball down to the 1-yard line where Peterson muscled his way into the end zone.

“I was excited with the way that we ran the veer at times,” Buboltz said. “Again we just keep need the reps with it but i really liked the way that KP [Kaden Peterson] and Ben attacked it in the second half.”

After a Chargers’ defense forced a three-and-out on the Knights next possession, MVL would go 48 yards on six plays, aided by a personal foul call on the Knights.

Price ended the drive on a 3-yard run with just over three minutes to go in the game.

“We are going to keep working on our power game and try to take care of the ball a little bit better,” Buboltz said. “We want to get that clock running. We want ball control — we know each week it will get tougher. And tonight we were able to control the line of scrimmage.”