Week 7 of the local high school football season means one thing.

There is just one more week of the regular season left, and that one comes next Wednesday with a short week of practice because of MEA week.

Playoffs begin the following Tuesday.

MINNESOTA VALLEY LUTHERAN (0-6) AT LAKE CRYSTAL-WELCOME MEMORIAL (4-2) 7 P.M., FRIDAY, LAKE CRYSTAL

Once again this season, the Chargers face a team with a winning record when they face the Knights, who are coming off of an 18-14 win last week against Pipestone Area.

“They are playing good ball,” Chargers head coach Jim Buboltz said about Lake Crystal. “They are finding different ways to move the ball effectively — they have a couple of talented running backs and have a wide out who can play wingback and carry the ball too.

“Their team has not changed that much in a year — all of their players are a year older. They got hot at the end of last year and it seems like they have carried it over to this season.”

Buboltz said that the Knights prefer to run the ball.

“You have to follow their guards — they are going to pull all over the place — and they like to attack from the C-gap out [between the offensive tackle and the tight end] so there is not a lot of interior-type of running. They like to go out wide.”

Buboltz said that while the Knights are fast, the Chargers can match that.

“They have a coupe of big players, but size-wise it will be even,” he said.

Defensively, the Knights do not give up the big plays.

Buboltz feels that the Chargers continue to improve despite their record.

“We have been working on our running game and now we need to get a balance in our offense,” he said. “We need to move the ball in the air and on the ground.”

He said that he will try and slow the game down similar to last week against Luverne when they used a second quarter drive that ate up almost 10 minutes.

“But we have to be able to pass the ball,” he said. “In our first two games we passed the ball very well, but recently we have wanted to run the ball and keep the game shorter and we were close to that last week.

“We have to open things up more and be able to attack both ways offensively. And we will work on both sides of the ball to see what changes we can make both on offense and defense.”

Buboltz feels that his team needs to gain confidence in themselves in the last two regular season games heading into playoffs.

“We saw some of it building last week against Luverne,” Buboltz said.

And getting the first score and playing with a lead would be big.

“We have played from behind every game this season,” Buboltz said. “A lot of teams do not function well when you are down a touchdown right away.”

The Chargers close out their regular season Wednesday, October 15th at Sibley East.

RENVILLE COUNTY WEST (2-4 ) AT NEW ULM CATHEDRAL (3-3) 7 P.M., FRIDAY, JOHNSON FIELD

If there is one game on the local scene that may have a big impact for playoff seedings, it is the game between the Jaguars and the Greyhounds.

Currently in the QRF value in Section 2, Nine-player, Renville County West has a QRF value of 12.8 with Cathedral at 14.9.

Offensively, the Jaguars are averaging 22.7 points per game with the Greyhounds at 23.5 points per game.

And Cathedral has a stingier defense allowing 19.8 points per game compared to 38.7 for Renville County.

Cathedral head football coach Denny Lux said that the Jaguars are similar to last year’s team — a team that the Greyhounds lost to 12-0 in the Section 2 Nine-man finals.

“They are pretty much doing the same thing,” he said. “They have that look with the quarterback and a couple of backs with him — they will run some quarterback power and some options. And they will run a little bit of trap look and give you some misdirection. These are things that they have had success with in the past.”

Lux said that RCW has a number of new players.

“But they do bring back a big running back who was a key factor in our section game last season. We know that he is a real good runner, a good-sized guy who we have to be ready to tackle him.

“They do a good job of reading the defensive ends, so our defensive ends are going to have to play in a position that the quarterback gets the ball to him that we can get some guys to the running back. And you are going to know where he is because he is the probably the biggest kid on the field.”

Lux again said that having fullback Adrian Henry back gives the Greyhounds a threat.

“And he is also coming on the field fresh and he does not have to play defense at this point,” he said. “We are working Koby Berdan as a extra guard, so we are trying to keep that depth chart at the best we can.”

The Greyhounds and the Jaguars know that this game does have implications for the upcoming seedings.

“We are both looking at this game as trying to get a spot for a home playoff game so there is a lot on the line,” Lux said.

And could both teams potentially play each other again in the first round of playoffs?

“It is hard to say on that one but it could line up that way,” Lux said. “We will have to wait and see.”

ST. PETER (5-1) AT NEW ULM (2-4), 7 P.M., FRIDAY, NEW ULM HIGH SCHOOL

The Saints come into this game as the 14th-ranked team in Class AAA and riding a four-game winning streak.

St. Peter’s only loss was a close 7-6 defeat to unbeaten Waseca in Week 1.

“They are having a really solid year and we have seen them in the regular season and in the playoffs,” New Ulm head coach Derek Lieser said. “They have some really good offensive linemen up front and have a lot of junior skill guys that are having good years for them. We certainly have our hands full and we are facing a team that has a lot of momentum in their favor. This is our last home game, so hopefully we can use that to our advantage.”

Lieser said that the Saints are primarily a running team.

“Their quarterback is an active passer when they do throw and he does run also,” Lieser said. “Ryan Moelter is their running back — his dad (Kurt) played for New Ulm High School — and he is a very solid player. Their guys up front are solid and their running back is probably their best overall player. They rely on the run game and when teams sell out to stop the run, that is when they try and be aggressive in the passing game and when they do throw the ball they are pretty successful.”

Last week in their 28-22 road loss to TCU, Lieser said that the Eagles had a half a dozen plays where New Ulm had players wide open but then had inopportune dropped passes.

“I think that all of our starting skill guys had a dropped pass in the game so we need to be able to capitalize on those chances,” Lieser said. “But I am curious to see how we match up physically with St. Peter up front. If we do not come ready to play it could get out of hand, but if we take care of the ball and operate within our system and do what we are capable of doing I think that it can be a competitive game.

“We have had three losses now that we felt we could have been on the winning side but have not been able to execute at a high enough level,” added Lieser. “If we do not play some of our better football against St. Peter, we could be in for a long night. We can’t hang our heads and feel sorry for ourselves — we need to come ready to play Friday night with the right mindset because if they do, they can do somethings.”

Lieser feels that the Eagles need to be able to run the ball and control the clock.

“Against TCU last week, we only had 35 yards rushing in the game but we had 220 yards passing — that is the most we have had all year — so we want to be more balanced but we need to be able to run the ball to keep our defense off of the field and keep the clock going in our favor,” he said.

New Ulm then ends their regular season on Wednesday, October 15th when they travel to Waseca to face the currently unbeaten Bluejays before Section 2AAAA playoffs start.