Josh Forstner scored the other Greyhounds touchdown in the first quarter on a 24-yard pass from Eli Anderson.

Portner lead the Greyhounds ground assault with 147 yards on 27 carries.

Cathedral converted on two of their three 2-point conversion attempts on an Eli Anderson run and a 2-point conversion pass to Jimmy Jensen.

Jacob Savig scored the lone Jaguars touchdown in the first quarter on a 1-yard run.

Photo by Brady Dennis New Ulm Cathedral's Eli Anderson tosses the ball to Alex Portner on Tuesday night's Nine-Man playoff football game against Renville County West at Johnson Field.

The Greyhounds, now 5-4 on the season, travel to Lamberton on Saturday at 2 p.m. to face Red Rock Central.

“You have to give both teams a lot of credit — both teams played really had,” Cathedral head coach Denny Lux said. “Both teams were running the ball. But what I am proud of was that after [RCW] scored on their opening drive, how we picked our game up. The seniors took over in the huddle and got things going. We turned up our energy level up both on offense and defense.”

The Jaguars took the opening kickoff and used a strong run game spearheaded by 6-foot, 215-pound Jacob Savig as they marched 87 yards in 14 plays — all on the ground — capped off by a Savig carried the ball 11 times for 60 yards in the drive.

A failed conversion made it 6-0.

But after the initial drive of the game by Renville County West, the Cathedral defense kept the Jaguars out of the end zone.

“We were really patient on defense and out defensive ends did a nice job,” Lux said after the first Jaguars march.

Even Blekestad led the Greyhounds defense with 15 tackles with Ike Kirschstein adding 13 stops and two quarterback sacks.

Cathedral counter-punched with a 55-yard, six-play scoring drive on their first possession of the game with Portner and Adrian Henry moving the ball on the ground to the Renville County West 24-yard line where Eli Anderson found Josh Forstner, who made a leaping catch in the end zone for a touchdown.

“That was a really nice throw and a heck of a catch on Josh’s part,” Lux said. “And then to come back and get that 2-point conversion [pass from Anderson to Jensen[ was huge to get that lead.”

Both teams exchanged turnovers in a scoreless second quarter before Cathedral took the opening kickoff of the second half and went 53 yards on four plays, with Portner capping off the drive with 15-yard score and then 2-point conversion run from Anderson.

Cathedral’s defense remained strong after the Greyhounds touchdown, forcing two punts.

“Coach [Jesse] Nosbush had a good game plan going into this game,” Lux said. “We came in a little tentative — our linebackers were catching some of their blocks but we took care of that.” Cathedral’s offense fed off of their defense to ad an insurance touchdown early in the fourth quarter going 54 yards on 12 plays and ending on a 9-yard touchdown run from Portner.

More important, the drive took almost seven minutes off of the clock.

“People might look art us and say, ‘Really — this is a Power-I team,’ Lux said. “But our guards get off of the stance and into their blocks and our three backs Adrian Henry, Lane Ruch and Portner do a really good job of working together.”