Week 3 of the high school football season sees two of the New Ulm teams tasting home cooking as both Minnesota Vallley Lutheran and New Ulm High School host games Friday against Pipestone Area and Albert Lea, respectively.

New Ulm Cathedral is on the road in Morgan to face Cedar Mountain Friday.

All games have 7 p.m. kickoffs.

PIPESTONE AREA (1-1) AT MINNESOTA VALLEY LUTHERAN (0-2) 7 P.M., FRIDAY, JOHNSON FIELD

The Chargers square off against the Arrows, who are coming off a 26-7 win over Windom last week. Meanwhile MVL is looking to rebound off of a 26-14 road losss last week to Le Sueur-Henderson.

“They have an athletic quarterback who willl take off after they spread you out,” MVL head coach Jim Buboltz said. “They would preferr to just power run the ball scheme it, but really in the big picture they want to spread you out and get the running game going — they probably have a little size on us on the line, but I think scheme-wise we can match up pretty decent with them.”

Buboltz said that defensively he wants his team to stop the Arrows’ run game and not give up the home run with a pass.

“But more than their run game, I am more concerned about getting our run game going,” he said. “That has to happen more for us than not right now and right now until that happens, it is going to be something that we are going to continue to work on. We have to get better at that.”

Buboltz said that rather rhan personnel or scheme changes, it is more on knowing who everyone has on their assignments.

“We are young, learning and still growing,” Buboltz said. “We are getting better every game, so I am not too worried about that.

“We are making strides each week — we have to remember that it is one step at a time — and things get more positive.”

Buboltz emphasized that establishing a run game Friday is key for the Chargers.

“It has to be for a young quarterback like we have, it has to be,” he said. “We need to control the ball. Eli [Schauland, MVL sophomore quarterback] threw the ball well in spots last week and he ran the ball. The biggest thing I want to see now is our offensive line and maintaining our running scheme. And our defense took some nice steps forward last week — we have given our offense some pretty short fields.”

NEW ULM CATHEDRAL (1-1) AT CEDAR MOUNTAIN (0-2) 7 P.M.,

FRIDAY, MORGAN

Cathedral head football coach Denny Lux said that despite the Cougars being winless that Cedar Mountain has played two good football teams.

“Edgerton brought back a number of players and Wabasso has some good athletes,” Lux said. “They have a lot of different offensive sets and in all of those sets they try and attack a different spot on the field, so we know we have our work cut out for us.”

Lux said that the Cedar Mountain coaches are experienced and have been able to run a pretty open offense.

“Their quarterback (Carson Schiller) is a three-year starter — they did graduate some good receivers, so they look like they are running more, but their passing game is in their book,” Lux said. “They are going to make us stop the run first.”

As far as the Greyhounds go, Lux thinks that his team needs to pick up the speed more on offense.

“I felt that in the game against BLH that our guys pulling and our guys in motion we were not crisp or fast with our decision-making,” he said. “We need to do a better job of that this week. We need some of that motion to move their defense and attack a certain part on the field.”

Lux was happy with the performance of his junior quarterback Eli Anderson and his wide receivers last week.

“He hit a number of receivers in stride — that was good to see because these are things we knew that we could do,” Lux said. “We have some really good receivers in Josh Forstner and Andrew Stern — they are fast and have good hands. And our offensive line did a good job for us — they kept Eli in the pocket and were letting him release the ball when he wanted to.”

Lux said that Cedar Mountain is going to test the Greyhounds defensive ends.

ALBERT LEA (2-0) AT NEW ULM (1-1) 7 P.M., FRIDAY, NEW ULM

HIGH SCHOOL

The New Ulm Eagles have defeated Albert Lea in their last two meetings by scores of 27-7 last year and 29-12 two seasons ago.

Friday, the Eagles host the Tigers, who come in unbeaten in two games and have outscored opponents 104-18 this year.

“Their points per game is very high,” New Ulm head coach Derek Lieser said. “In watching film on them, their quarterback is super elusive — this is his third year as a starter. He is a guy who we have to try and contain both in the run game as well as the pass. His arm strength and accuracy has improved — he can throw the deep ball and he can run, so we definitely have our hands full getting ready for a team that presents some challenges and runs an option offense that is not super common.”

Lieser said that the Tigers are a team of big plays.

“They rely on the other teams cornerbacks getting lazy with their eyes and then hit a big play,” he said. “So if we can limit those big plays and force them to drive down the field that will bode well for us. We want to force them to get out of their element and into things that they are not comfortable doing. We want to make them one-dimensional.”

Offensively, Lieser said that the Eagles need to limit their miscues — a lot of them mental.

“They can be corrected,” he said. “We can go back and watch film and point out the things that we need to fix. Sometimes we stepped the wrong way as an offensive lineman and that allowed penetration or sometimes the wrong player pulled — and sometimes our footwork was not what it needed to be. We can point out the things that went well and the things that we need to fix.”