New Ulm Cathedral’s Josh Bentler’s 237 yards rushing on 15 carries Friday night in a 50-0 win over Granada-Huntley/East Chain moved the senior to 843 yards on 104 carries for the season.

Jeff Schnobrich holds the single-game rushing mark at 305 yards.

Bentler is averaging just over eight yards a carry this season, along with eight touchdowns and six 2-point conversion runs.

Last season, Bentler carried the ball 123 times for 714 yards and six touchdowns and five 2-point conversions.

And if you watch Bentler run, he is a runner who consistently breaks off the long one.

Friday night he had touchdown runs of 80, 30 and 44 yards.

“First off you give credit to his offensive linemen,” Cathedral head coach Denny Lux said. “Ike Kirschstein, Logan Klawitter and Joey Schugel and tight ends Joe Gillis, Kaden Olson and Josh Forstner and Lane Ruch — there are a number of players that we use at tight end,”

Lux said that Bentler has excellent vision.

“He sees where the cutback lanes are, but his biggest asset is that he is so quick from the start,” Lux said. “Sometimes he will get behind a pulling guard or a tight end and he will almost stop completely and then cut the other way.”

Bentler has been a key to the Greyhounds’ offense that has scored 64, 46 and 50 points in the last three games.

And defensively in those three contests, they have not allowed a point.

“They really have raised the bar defensively as far as how they want to play as a unit,” Lux said about the Greyhounds’ defense. “You can see the pride in that defense.”

And that pride is also on the offensive side of the ball.

“Jake [Finstad, Greyhounds quarterback] was coming to the sidelines with a play and he wanted to keep the rhythm going.”

And Lux said that when you check out the scoring column, you see other people involved.

“We have opened up the offense and spread the ball around more and we are seeing more mismatches,” he said.

And winning the last three game in dominating fashion has changed the team.

“We are a totally different team from earlier in the year,” Lux said. “I just feel that the leadership that our senors is really pulling this team together. We have a couple of sophomores playing and some juniors. It takes something to make this all gel and we are getting that.”

EAGLES LOSE STARTER IN WIN OVER ST.PETER

For the second time this season, the New Ulm Eagles have lost a starting quarterback for the season.

Friday night in a 22-18 win over St. Peter, freshman quarterback Owen Castleman went down with an upper-body injury that will sideline him for the rest of the football season, according to New Ulm head football coach Derek Lieser.

The Eagles lost starting senior quarterback Preston Holberg for the rest of the season in the third game of the year, also with an upper-body injury.

“He was injured in the fourth quarter,” Lieser said. “We said it Friday night that if we did not have bad luck we would have no luck at all when it comes to injuries.”

And for the second time this season, sophomore Noah Mertz entered the game.

“He willed us to a game-winning drive in a back-and-forth game late in the game,” Lieser said. “And our defense was able to hold off St. Peter late. It was a physical game. It was a good football game.”

Lieser said that Mertz came in for the injured Castleman.

“We ran a trick play and he executed it flawlessly,” Lieser said. “He had a big time throw on a second-and-long and hit Zach Hubbard right in the numbers. That got us within the 10-yard line. He executed the game plan flawlessly.

“And we emphasize to our kids that no matter what your role is, it is huge. Noah came in for the second time this year and was able to do enough at quarterback to lead our offense. He was cool back there. He was able to make sure that our offense was able to sustain our drive. Hats off to him as he was ready to go again.”

The Eagles defense played well despite also being banged up.

“Sam Ibberson [linebacker] did not play Friday — Bodee Schmeising did not play the first half, so we had multiple new starters in on our linebacking corp,” Lieser said. “We were able to limit their big plays. I was really happy with the way our defense played and our offense executed when we needed them the most. This was a great team win.”

Lieser said prior to his injury, Castleman was having a good game.

“He threw the ball well — he had a really nice run,” he said. “Dain Barie got in on the action on the receiving end. Isaac Friese and Tyshun Brown were a nice duo at running back.”

Lieser said it was a big win as New Ulm improved to 4-2 with a road game at Jordan next Friday.

CHARGERS FALL

TO JACKSON

COUNTY CENTRAL

Minnesota Valley Lutheran head football coach Jim Buboltz said the Huskies of Jackson County Central are what they saw on film in a 64-8 loss to the number four team in Class 2A.

“They are absolutely one of the best football teams that I have seen in a long, long time,” Buboltz said. “And they showed that rather quickly last night.”

JCC built a 58-0 lead at halftime.

“They have a lot of team speed and they also have great size. And their quarterback [Roman Voss] is elite. It was clear to see why they are having the success that they are.”

After Friday, the Huskies are outscoring opponents by an average of 56-6 a game.

“We got a couple of first downs — we got inside their five yard line but their size just came into play and really stopped us from that point,” Buboltz said. “They had the ability to get chunk yardage at any time. It was one of those games where you played a far superior opponent.”