Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm Cathedral’s Alex Portner runs the ball while wrapped up by Hills-Beaver Creek defender Micah Bush (7) during a Nine-Man South District, West Subdistrict football game at Johnson Field on Wednesday.

NEW ULM — The good news for the New Ulm Cathedral Greyhounds on Wednesday night was that they held the No. 4 Hills-Beaver Creek Patriots to their second lowest point total of the season.

The bad news was that the Patriots still racked up 36 points and stifled a frequently-dominant Greyhounds offense on the way to a 36-8 win in a Nine-Man South District, West Subdistrict football game at Johnson Field.

The Patriots had their lowest point outing of the season last week against another top nine-man squad in Mountain Lake Area, a 20-8 win over the now 8-0 Patriots.

The Greyhounds, now 5-3, were coming off of a four-week unbeaten stretch that saw them total 220 points and allow 20. But the Greyhounds, led by running back Josh Bentler, were unable to generate much offense against a strong, athletic HBC defense. Bentler did crack 1,000 yards rushing for the season against the Patriots, but he was often stuffed at the line and unable to break free like he has in prior weeks.

Alex Portner, a 140-pound sophomore running back for the Greyhounds, did find some room but only a couple of times in the second half. His first big run went for 17 yards and his next big run went 31 yards for the Greyhounds’ only TD of the game.

“They’re just so solid everywhere defensively,” Cathedral head coach Denny Lux said of HBC. “Everywhere defensively they don’t have a weak link on them out there. The way they play their defense with their front six is they’re able to put so much pressure into the backfield, whether it be versus the pass or versus any kind of run game that’s going on in the backfield, because they play their safety and the corners deep and they’re just taking advantage of their athletes and their strength out there.”

HBC scored on its first drive of the game on a 37-yard TD pass from 6-5 quarterback Jamin Metzger to Micah Bush. A 2-point try was stopped by the Greyhounds, making it 6-0 with 6:58 left in the first quarter.

The Greyhounds punted on their next three drives before the Patriots went up 14-0 with 4:11 left in the half on a TD keeper by Metzger of 7 yards and a 2-point conversion catch by Beau Bakken.

Greyhounds quarterback Jake Finstad was pressed to throw deep on third down on the Greyhounds’ next drive and was picked off by Bush. The Patriots then scored again before the half ended on another touchdown grab by Bush, this time a 22-yarder. Eduardo Wegener added a 2-point run to give HBC a 22-0 lead going into halftime.

The Greyhounds finally got into the scoring column thanks to Portner’s big rushes of 17 and 31 yards. His first run was aided by a horse-collar tackle penalty that set the Greyhounds up at the HBC 19-yard line.

A chop-block penalty backed the Greyhounds up 15 yards the next play, but Portner didn’t seem bothered as he raced left to the outside and down the sideline for his 31-yard TD run. Josh Forstner then secured a 2-point conversion catch to make it 22-8 with 9:09 left in the third quarter.

Bush caught his third touchdown of the game on HBC’s next drive before a 2-point conversion run by Sawyer Bosch made it 30-8. The Patriots scored their final touchdown midway through the fourth quarter on a 1-yard TD run by James VandenBosch.

“I was really proud of our guys, how hard they played, they didn’t back down at any point of the game, because, yeah, [HBC is] a top five team in the state, there’s no doubt,” Lux said.

Finstad completed 5 of 16 passes, three to Colin Anderson for 46 yards.

Defensively, Joe Gillis and Joey Schugel each were in on 15 total tackles for the Greyhounds, with Schugel adding a sack and a blocked PAT. Lane Ruch added 11 tackles for Cathedral.

Ending the season against one of the best teams in nine-man this season wasn’t something the Greyhounds planned for, but it was a good test ahead of playoffs.

“We all know that the schedules that everybody has, you have no control over that,” Lux said. “But to finish the season with Hills, to know the level of play that has to be to get deep into the playoffs is a good thing. And, again, I thought our skills guys matches up pretty good, it’s just the offensive and defensive line, that’s where they were so much strength and size against us.”

Playoff seedings are announced Thursday, with the first round beginning Tuesday at the high seed.