File photo by Travis Rosenau Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Brennan Bendix (2) celebrates an incompletion during a South District, Central-Silver Subdistrict football game against Pipestone Area on Sept. 27.

NEW ULM — Week 7 of the local high school football season means that there is only one more week left in the regular season before sectional playoffs start.

Friday night just the Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers will be at home when they host Redwood Valley at 7 p.m. at Johnson Field.

New Ulm Cathedral and New Ulm High School have road contests at Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart and Jordan, respectively.

REDWOOD VALLEY (4-2) AT MINNESOTA VALLEY LUTHERAN (2-4) 7 P.M., FRIDAY,

JOHNSON FIELD

Chargers head coach Jim Buboltz said that the Cardinals are another strong team that they will face.

“They come in with a lot of talented specialty guys — they like to air it out and get the ball up in the air,” he said.”They like to play that high-flying offense. They are a 6-/40 passing team. They will do some short and intermediate stuff for ball control bu they want to get on top. But we also have to be prepared to stop the run — they have some speed.”

Buboltz said that there will not be whole-sale changes in the defensive scheme because of the threat of the pass.

“We just have to get better at tackling in space — that has to be our big thing. We need to get off of blocks and tackling in space are going to be the two things that we work on the most. I am hoping that we match up better in the next couple of games here. They are very comparable to Pipestone.”

As far as the Chargers offense goes for Friday’s game, Buboltz said that they have to try and run the ball successfully.

“We saw it against Pipestone — when we were able to run the ball then passing lanes opened up for us,” he said. “But we cannot be a pass-first, run-second against [Redwood Valley]. We need to be more ball control.”

Buboltz said that running back Ben Price had a decent running game against Jackson County as he ran for 71 yards. “We can’t forget that we have a kid back there who has started for us for the last three years and for every game,” Buboltz said. “He likes to carry the ball between the tackles.”

And this game and perhaps the Chargers’ next home game next Wednesday are going to be huge.

“We have to win a game to get into the playoffs, I believe,” Buboltz said. “Our section [3AA] is only taking the top six teams in coaches’ vote. We have been between four and six here all year, so we have to win a game if we want to play a playoff game. These last two games are games where we can compete real well in and we have to.

“We have to do a better job of tackling in space — that is the key for both games. When we have done that we have been in games — this team can definitely win. But if we do not get that type of effort our season will be over and the team knows it too but it is nice having both of these games at home.”

NEW ULM CATHEDRAL (4-2) AT BUFFALO LAKE-HECTOR-STEWART (0-6) 7 P.M.,

FRIDAY, HECTOR

New Ulm Cathedral head coach Denny Lux said that his defense will be facing a Mustangs offense that runs the Power-I offense.

“They will have three backs in the backfield and they will try and run straight at you,” he said. “They also do some outside run and some motion off of that with their flanker. That is an offense that we have not seen this year. So coach [Jesse] Nosbush on the defensive side will probably play a different type of front just to stop that running game.”

This year the Mustangs have had some struggles.

“They are coming back from last year and it was partway through the season last year where they had a number of injuries and their roster got to a point where they had to cancel a few games,” Lux said. “So they are on the rebound — their coaches and kids are working hard — and they are trying to build up their numbers within the program.”

Offensively Lux said that in last week’s game the Greyhounds had a few drives that stalled.

“What caused that more than anything was that we had three penalties where we were downfield for a first down and got caught blocking in the back or clipping,” Lux said. “That is really what we have to get cleaned up — we need to be penalty-free. We need to understand that when Josh Bentler [Cathedral running back] is out in front, they are not going to catch him, so you need to let him do his thing.”

As far as playoffs for the Greyhounds go, right now they are currently third behind Renville County West and Cedar Mountain (a team that Cathedral defeated 18-8 earlier in the season) in the QRF rankings for Section 2, 9-man.

“Just like every other team out there, we are going to play it one game at a time,” Lux said. “When our last regular season game is over (home game on Wednesday, Oct. 16 against currently 6-0 and fourth-ranked team in 9-man, Hills-Beaver Creek), the rankings are really out of our hands because in this section we use the QRF rankings.”

NEW ULM HIGH SCHOOL (4-2) AT JORDAN (2-4)

JORDAN HIGH SCHOOL

New Ulm head football coach Derek Lieser said that the Hubmen are a young team, but at 2-4, Jordan is still a formidable opponent.

“Some of their losses are to very good teams in Marshall, Luverne, Waseca,” Lieser said. “So even at 2-4, they [Jordan] have shown that they can put up points — they scored 41 [against Albert Lea] 27 [against Belle Plaine] and 21 [against Waseca], so they can score in bunches. Their quarterback throws the ball well and they have an elusive running back.

“So, defensively we are going to have to make sure that we keep ourselves in the game and offensively, we are going to have to make sure we can manufacture some offense with our unique situation that we have with injuries.”

Part of that offense falls on the shoulders of sophomore quarterback Noah Mertz, who will be called on again after season-ending injuries to quarterbacks Preston Holberg and Owen Castleman.

“The hard part is that at this part of the year you cannot drastically what you are doing offensively,” Lieser said. “You try and create easy throws for your quarterback to build some confidence. You have to rely on your run game more and you have to try and get other players involved — everybody else has to step up and elevate their game to make it easier for the quarterback.

“It is no different than when Owen came in — you have to ask everyone to elevate their game. It is certainly difficult to replace injured players. Noah has done a nice job when he has come in. Manufacturing offense is certainly challenging, but we are going to do our best to be creative with our play calling but not get away from our identity.”

Lieser said that the Eagles’ playbook has shrunk a little bit.

“In certain ways with making the pre-snap motioning or shifting — that could potentially happen especially in Noah’s first varsity start,” Lieser said. “But we feel that Noah is intellectually able to run and guide our offense. Your offense just evolves to match the skills of the players that you have.”

And the Eagles defense will play a big part in what happens Friday.

“We knew coming in that our defense was going to be our calling-card for the year,” Lieser said. “We are also banged up there, but we that our defense — other than the Fairmont game — has held teams to under 20 points and that is a goal that we have. If we can keep a team under 20 points and if we can score three times that we have a decent shot to win.”

As far as playoffs go for the Eagles, currently New Ulm is second in the QRF rankings behind Marshall and ahead of St. Peter (a team that they beat 22-18 last week) and Hutchinson (3-3) and Willmar (0-6).

“If we get that fifth win, it would solidify and sets the tone that we deserve one of those top three seeds,” Lieser said. “But ultimately it comes down to what are the other programs going to vote. We can’t control that, but we can make our case as best as we can but ultimately the opposing coaches have to vote (for the seedings).”