Record aside, Minnesota Valley Lutheran head football coach Jim Buboltz said that his team played well in the last few weeks of the season.

“Things were coming together for us — we were getting better and better — and [Tuesday] they really put it our there,” he said about the Chargers’ 12-6 season-ending loss at Lake Crystal Welcome Memorial in a Section 3AA playoff game with the Knights.

Two weeks before that, MVL lost to that same team 26-6.

Buboltz said that his defense played well and the offense moved the ball in not-the-best weather conditions that seemed to stop both teams.

The game was scoreless at halftime before the Knights took a 6-0 lead.

“But we were able to tie the game in the fourth quarter,” Buboltz said.

Lake Crystal took a 12-6 lead after that before the Chargers fumbled the ensuing kickoff that was recovered by the Knights.

“We never the chance to run another offensive play in the game after that,” he said.

He said that both teams came up big defensively when the other got into the red zone.

“That was the key as was our resiliency,” Buboltz said. “We lost some players in the game to injury — we lost our starting guard and middle linebacker on the third play of the game. We lost [wide receiver] Kyan Kube, and quarterback Eli Schauland went down in the third quarter of the game. But our guys kept coming back and I felt that that was the resiliency of our kids in keeping us in the game — they refused to give up and give in.”

Buboltz felt that Tuesday’s game was the best four quarters that his team put together all year.

“Next year we need to find more ways to score when we get into the Red Zone,” he said. “We left a lot of points out there not just in this game but all season and in some tight games that really could have turned the direction of our season around.”

While the Chargers are still a relatively young team, Buboltz said that they are going to have to replace some key graduating players.

“Especially on the defensive side of the ball,” he said. “We are going to continue to grow on the offensive side of the ball where we bring a lot of young players back. But defensively we are going to have to replace a lot of seniors who made some key contributions.”

And Buboltz said that the most potential going forward is on the offensive side of the ball.

After the loss Tuesday, Buboltz told his players was that they can be sad that the season is over.

“But that they should not be sad walking off of the field knowing that they gave their complete heart and that is why the loss hurts. I told them they can walk off of the field with their heads held high.”

EAGLES SEASON ENDS AT WILLMAR

New Ulm Eagles head football coach Derek Lieser said that the Eagles ran into a physical Willmar football game Tuesday in the first round of the Section 2AAAA playoffs.

“Their physicalness and size wore on us,” he said. “We had a couple of turnovers and they had a couple of special teams big plays. We did not do enough to continue our season. We threw two interceptions and had a fumble but we did force two turnovers — they were able to capitalize on our turnovers.”

Lieser saiid that Willmar’s size up front “Was pretty formidable,” Lieser said. “They had five players up front who were fast and big — they were bigger than our biggest kid, so they were able to dictate things up front. They won the line of scrimmage.”

One thing that the Eagles have going for them is their youth with only 11 seniors on the roster.

“We played a lot of young kids,” Lieser said. “We have a lot of sophomores and juniors getting significant time, so we return a lot of experience at key spots on both sides of the ball. We grew as a program over the year.”

Lieser said that the program needs to improve in all areas.

“We need to get stronger and faster and more physical,” he said. “And we need to value the football. When you play AAAA playoff football teams are big and strong at all levels of the game. We are one of the smallest AAAA schools — St. Peter saw that too [Tuesday] when you go and play a AAAA school in the playoffs who has played AAAA all year. It is a different brand of football. We are going to be in AAAA playoff football for the foreseeable future.”