Adrian Henry, Anderson and Alex Portner scored touchdowns for Cathedral.

Portner carried the ball 12 times for 105 yards with Henry totaling 94 yards on 17 carries.

Sam Zeug, Drew Kemp, Nick Leopold and Rohlik scored the Wabasso touchdowns as the Rabbits improved to 4-0 on the season.

Rohlik ended with 90 yards on 20 carries with Nolan Leopold ending with 75 yards on nine carries.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm Cathedral’s Adrian Henry (44) flips the ball to a ref duirng a Nine-man South District, West Subdistrict football game against Wabasso Friday at Johnson Field.

“This was a good high school football game,” Cathedral head football coach Denny Lux said. “Our guys played really well and we took a huge step forward from last week to this week against a very good team.”

Cathedral had taken a 20-18 lead at the 5:50 mark of the fourth quarter and had the ball in their own territory when Cathedral fumbled the ball and Wabasso’s Ezekiel Olson recovered on their own 37-yard line.

Wabasso then marched 63 yards for the eventual game-winning score.

“I think it’s a growing thing for us,” Wabasso head coach Joe Kemp said. “Three years ago, we would have quit. We would have laid down, but we stayed with it. I believe good teams win when you’re not on your A-game, and a lot of that has do to with what New Ulm Cathedral did to us. They played hard, physical, controlled the ball for long periods of time. Just the fact that we stayed with it.”

Lux said that the mistakes hurt his team, especially late in the game.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey The Wabasso offense, led by quarterback Drew Kemp (9), faces off against Josh Forstner (9), Ike Kirschstein (50) and the rest of the New Ulm Cathedral defese on a fourth down at the 1-yard line during a South District, West Subdistrict football game Friday at Johnson Field.

“We put the ball down a couple of times on fumbles and we had a pick at the end — we cannot do that against a good team.”

Wabasso took a 6-0 lead on their opening drive when they went 62 yards on 12 plays and capped a 5:48 minute drive with a 6-yard Zeug run.

The Rabbits made it 12-0 midway through the second quarter capping a 10-play, 50-yard drive when Kemp powered in from a yard out.

But Cathedral countered on a 58-yard, eight-play drive when Adrian Henry bowled in from one yard out to cut the lead at halftime to 12-6.

“This was his first game back [from a knee injury] and he made a huge difference,” Lux said. “We need to work him in.”

A Greyhounds defensive stop on fourth down set up the second New Ulm Cathedral touchdown when Anderson scored from two yards out and a 2-point conversion pass from Anderson to Evan Blekestad gave the Greyhounds a 14-12 lead.

Cathedral then increased their lead to 20-12 on a Portner 4-yard run which ended a 77 yard, six-play drive with 9:12 left in the game.

Down by eight with just over nine minutes to go in the game, Kemp engineered a 62-yard scoring drive and ended on a Nolan Leopold 8-yard run to cut the lead to 20-18 as a Wabasso 2-point conversion try failed.

“We are still a work in progress — we got the second half of the season and we can take this forward.” Lux said.

Wabasso improves to 4-0 on the season and hosts Renville County West on Saturday, Sept. 27.

“I think we’re playing with a little more enthusiasm and a little more purpose,” coach Kemp said. “Our practices are better. Tonight was a tough game, and Cathedral took it to us in many aspects of the game. The fact that we didn’t quit was an important step of going in the right direction for our program.”