By Jim Bastian

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM — The fifth week of the high school football season has two local teams playing at home and one taking a relatively short road trip for their contest.

Both Minnesota Valley Lutheran and New Ulm High School have tough home games Friday against Pipestone Area and Fairmont, respectively, while New Ulm Cathedral heads down Highway 15 for a meeting with Madelia.

All games have 7 p.m. kickoffs.

PIPESTONE AREA (4-0) AT MINNESOTA VALLEY LUTHERAN (2-2) FRIDAY, 7 P.M., JOHNSON FIELD

This is the second of three straight tough games that the Chargers have in their Bermuda Triangle of games. Last week the Chargers fell 35-0 to unbeaten Luverne. This week, they host a 4-0 Arrows team before heading to currently unbeaten Jackson County Central next week.

Unlike Luverne that relies on their ground assault, the Arrows are a team that can also pass.

“They run the ball, but they like to spread you out and throw,” Chargers head coach Jim Buboltz said. “They have a lot of athletes and their quarterback can chuck it around pretty good — he can also take off and run at times.

“They had a big win last week (14-0) over Redwood Falls, which was probably their best game of the year. They are not big in the backfield but their line is decent size, but they are not as big as Luverne or Jackson.”

Buboltz said that the Arrows have Luverne talent in their quarterback and wide receivers.

“But their biggest thing is that their quarterback can take off and run — he is very multi-dimensional — so it will be similar with what we will see next week with JCC.”

Buboltz said that defensively he wants to give the Pipestone offense several different looks. “We have played decent defense at times but the biggest thing for us is to give their quarterback some different looks that he has not seen before,” Buboltz said. “Give him some odd types of looks and disguise some of the ways that we want to get pressure on him or get to the ball to stop the run.”

Offensively, the Chargers will be looking at a team that blitzes a lot and will show some different looks.

“But I think that if we can secure that and find that blitz that we can move the ball successfully,” he said. “That is going to be the big thing — we are going to have to find something to allow us to move the ball consistently instead of depending on one giant play.”

He said that the Chargers need to find a balance on offense to succeed.

“It is all about the mix offensively because they are going to blitz on different downs — they like to blitz and show different pressures that way — but it can also put them in some susceptible positions.

“So I think that the approach that we had in our first half against Luverne where we kept their offense off of the field and kept ours on the field will work. We were in the game longer in the first half (down 14-0 at halftime).”

Buboltz thinks that getting that first score — especially at home — will be important.

“Plus they have that longer bus ride, so we want to make sure that we are in the game right away and don’t let them get up on us, get a lead and be comfortable in what they want to do,” he said. “We need to keep them uncomfortable. When we get in the red zone, we need to make positive things happen. We have always played Pipestone better at home, so that is the kind of mentality that we need to have. We need to defend our home turf.”

NEW ULM CATHEDRAL (2-2) AT MADELIA (0-4) FRIDAY, 7 P.M., MADELIA HIGH SCHOOL

Cathedral head football coach Denny Lux said that the Blackhawks are a team that brings an offensive set that the Greyhounds have not seen before this season.

“They will protect their quarterback with their running backs blocking, but they will also send those guys into the flat,” he said. “That is going to put pressure on our outside linebackers to make sure that they get a good read on those backs coming out of the backfield. They do throw the ball well and they have receivers that run good routes — they like the intermediate or short passes.”

Offensively the Greyhounds enter this game coming off of their best performance of the year where they scored 64 points against Westbrook-Walnut Grove last week.

“It should carry over quite a bit just because of the confidence,” Lux said about last weeks win. “We have that extra spring in our step offensively. We did a lot of good things offensively, but week to week and game to game we are getting better and understanding our roles in how we play on the field.”

And the Greyhounds showed a lot of speed last week in their win in Josh Bentler, Jake Finstad and Alex Portner.

“We knew that we had speed as we had watched Josh in the spring running track,” Lux said. “He is a 100-meter guy and has won all of his 100-meter events so we know that he is one of the fastest in the area. Alex and Jake are right there with him. We could tell from some of our B games that Alex was a good running back — he can see the hole and change directions without losing a step — and he gives us another option offensively.”

He said that their offensive linemen know that if they stay on their blocks and get a good angle to their blocks that their backs can do something.

And last week was also a shutout on defense.

“Defensively it was a good game and it reminded me of our Cedar Mountain game (an 18-8 win).”

It was also a game last week that saw the Cathedral defense force four turnovers.

“[Defensive coordinator] Jesse Nosbush is always talking about playing fast and you saw that with our defensive ends, linebackers and secondary,” Lux said. “They were getting to the ball really quick.”

FAIRMONT (4-0) AT NEW ULM HIGH SCHOOL (3-1) FRIDAY, 7 P.M., NEW ULM

HIGH SCHOOL

The Fairmont Cardinals come into the game averaging 39.5 points per game while allowing just 6.8 points a game.

“In watching film of them they are a very talented team,” New Ulm Eagles head coach Derek Lieser said. “They have that rich football history — Mat Mahoney [Fairmont head coach] does a really nice job with his squad year in and year out. They are solid on both sides of the ball — they are big up front offensively. Their running back [Elijah Johnson] has committed to St. Thomas and he runs hard — he is one of those guys who the first guy who tries to tackle him is usually unsuccessful, especially if he is by himself. You really have to get a lot of hats to the football. And when you come up to commit to the run their quarterback [Joe Long] is pretty accurate with his passes. They have some good receivers on the outside. Defensively we are going to have our hands full.”

When the Eagles have the ball on offense, the Cardinals’ stingy defense will do a lot of different things, Lieser said.

“They will present different looks and that can make if challenging when you are not always sure where they are going to line up,” he said. “And that can be especially challenging for a young quarterback. We will have our hands full and there is a reason they are one of the top two or three teams in Class 3A.”

Lieser said that defensively his team needs to limit big plays from the Cardinals offense.

“We know that it is going to be pretty challenging to shut them out completely, but we need to make them earn everything,” he said.

Offensively Lieser said that his offense needs to compliment their defense.

“Last week we did not do a good enough job in keeping our defense off of the field — it seemed like our defense was on the field for long stretches of time — and part of that were the turnovers and not being able to sustain drives,” he said. “Both sides of the ball need to help each other out Friday. We tell the kids to try and win your assignment on each play — you cannot win a game all at once.”

Lieser also thinks that freshman Owen Castleman will be more relaxed in his second varsity start after all of his first game distractions last week.

“I think that he will adjust to the speed of the game — that is one of the biggest things along with the processing of being able to recognize things and make the right decisions,” Lieser said.

And Lieser reiterated that a consistent run game will be needed Friday.

“One of the best ways you can negate the high scoring offense is to keep the clock moving when you have the ball,” he said. “The more that we can sustain drives and keep the clock moving, the more you can limit their offensive opportunities. The hard part is their defense has scored touchdowns this season — they are aggressive. Last year we played them and they had a late defensive touchdown on pick-6. So we are certainly going to need to rely on our ground game, but we also need to be better in the pass game to give our offense some balance.”