Last week, all of the New Ulm area high school football teams opened their seasons at home.

This week they all are hopping on buses for road contests in Week 2.

Minnesota Valley Lutheran is at Le Sueur-Henderson, while New Ulm Cathedral plays at Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart and New Ulm High School heads south to play Fairmont.

MINNESOTA VALLEY LUTHERAN (0-1) AT LE SUEUR-HENDERSON (1-0) 7 P.M., LESUEUR

The Chargers are coming off a 42-7 loss to the defending Class A champion Min- neota last week, while the Giants won a low-scoring 6-0 game over Mayer Lutheran.

“They resemble last year’s team in that they are decent

size up front and have a big running back and take their

3 yards and a cloud of dust,” Chargers head coach Jim Buboltz said. “They want to play a physical game on both sides of the ball. They are not as big

as Minneota, but they have some size — we will match up a little bit better here than we did last week.”

Buboltz said that the Chargers gave up some points last week on special teams. “So we are spending more time in practice on that, but on defense it is just being disciplined and staying in the right place — we are also spending more time on that in practice. And on offense we need to stay on our blocks better.”

Buboltz felt that sophomore quarterback Eli Schauland played well in his first varsity start against a very good Minneota team.

“He put the ball where it needed to go and he got the team in and out of the huddle,” Buboltz said. “He called the plays in a timely manner–he has a lot of leadership skills — so he is going to grow every game and I am happy with what he gave us. He has an exciting career for us ahead of him.”

Buboltz was happy with Chase Tweit and his 65 yards rushing in the game.

“He ran hard, but we did not open up the biggest holes for him — he created quite a bit of it on his own,” Buboltz said.

But Buboltz said that Friday’s game is going to be a game where the Giants are going to ground-and-pound, come up on the run and then get us out of position.

“And we need to do the same thing so the team that can do that will find the throwing easier too,” he said.

NEW ULM CATHEDRAL (0-1) AT BUFFALO LAKE-HECTOR-STEWART 7 P.M., HECTOR

Both the Greyhounds and the Mustangs are looking to rebound off of opening game losses.

Cathedral fell 28-6 to Red Rock Central, while the Mustangs dropped a 60-0 game to Wabasso.

Greyhounds head coach Denny Lux said he is looking for the most improvement from his team is on the edge plays on his defensive line.

“Last game with Red Rock our defensive ends really got tested,” he said. “They are new but they are seniors, so we need those guys to step up and push down into that gap so that the backs cannot get through that hole at full speed.”

Lux thought that his team did a good job offensively establishing two or three dif-ferent sets that they ran.

“We have to complete some passes and that will come — Eli (Anderson, Greyhounds quarterback) now has a game under his belt,” Lux said. “We did more of a play-action pass game and that will be our strength, I believe.”

Lux felt that his team

played better in the second half as a lot of his younger players gained experience.

“We were not intimidated the whole game, but when they scored on their second play from scrimmage, we came back with a 30-yard drive but it stalled,” he said. “But we gained experience — it is a lot different than playing B-squad.”

The Mustangs run the wishbone and will send blocking backs off the edge and do a good job of deception according to Lux.

“They are hungry for a win,” he said. “We have to step up and tackle and un- derstand where our responsibilities are on the field as far as contain and pursuit.”

Lux said that he wants to correct some mistakes from last week in the team’s blocking techniques.

“They are going to make us work because they do not play with a safety and they do not play with loose line- backers,” he said. “They will bring everyone up to the line of scrimmage and force you to block a lot of people so we need to understand where everyone is coming from.”

NEW ULM HIGH SCHOOL

(1-0) AT FAIRMONT (1-0) 7 P.M., FAIRMONT

Both the Eagles and the Cardinals are coming off of first games where they scored 40 points.

New Ulm downed Austin 44-7, while Fairmont blanked Worthington 47-0.

“The Fairmont machine just keeps on chugging,” New Ulm head coach Derek Lieser said. “They are a very physical team as they al- ways are. They bring back their quarterback and their run game is very efficient, so it is going to be a big challenge for us. In my three years here, we have struggled to hold them down of-fensively and on offense we have sometimes struggled to get the ball moving. We definitely have a tall task ahead of us.”

Lieser said that the old adage of the game being won or lost on the line of scrimmages holds true for this game.

“But that is one thing that we are excited about this year,” he said. “We feel like our line play has improved and we have more size than we have had in the past, so I am excited to see if our improved play at the line of scrimmage if that can help equalize us.

“We feel good about our skilled guys, so now it is a matter of can we match up up front. We need to match that physical play.”