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New Ulm Cathedral head coach Denny Lux said that despite a dominant 47-6 road win Thursday night at Red Rock Central, the Greyhounds played a better second half.
"We made some mistakes in that first half, but we played better in the second half," he said. "We took advantage of [five] miscues of Red Rock where we had a shorter field, but it was still that physical game that I felt it would be. Defensively we had players in the right spots -- we tackled better in the second half and the pass defense kept everything in front of them. We caught Red Rock at a good time early in the year because once they get more seasoned they will get better too."
Cathedral running back Alex Portner had a great opening game Thursday when he rushed for 132 yards on 17 carries and five touchdowns.
"He ran real well -- we kind of packed it in tight and forced Red Rock to bring in their defenders and not give them a lot of space to make plays" Lux said. "Alex was able to see some creases and make some cutbacks. He is one of those backs that comes around every so often -- we have had a few backs like that here where you make sure you get them the ball and make sure they get a chance to go towards the end zone instead of towards the sidelines."
Lux also felt that his defensive ends Lane Ruch and Andrew Stern did a good job.
"Our linebackers Evan Blekestad and Camden Berg played well," Lux said. "On offense we made our guards [Ruch and Berg] work all game long. We did a lot of pulling and they were all in by the time the game was over."
Lux was also pleased with the play of sophomore Blake Aufderheide.
"He is our fullback on offense and he ended up playing defensive line -- he played defensive end and linebacker and noseguard."
Lux was also happy with the balance on offense and defense.
"Most of those players probably sweated off five or six pounds Thursday because of the heat and humidity and decided that the game was more important and we did that in the second half."
The Greyhounds host Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart this coming Friday at 4 p.m. at Johnson Field.
EAGLES ROLL IN FIRST WEEK WIN
New Ulm High School head football coach Derek Lieser said it was a hot night for football on Friday but his team played well in a 40-14 road win over Austin.
"The game time got pushed back an hour, but I was really happy with the way the kids came out and played for four quarters," Lieser said. "We dominated the first half -- we did shoot ourselves in the foot where one pass bounced off one of their receivers and bounced into another of their receivers hands for a touchdown and we fumbled a ball deep in our territory late in the first half and gave up a score. But we had a shutout in the second half. Happy with game one and execute at a high level,"
The Eagles used a solid running game in Hunter Heil, Parker Ranweiler, George Gag and Jeff Kral all had good first games.
"Our guys up front did an awesome job and they felt good about running the ball here," Lieser said. "Parker had over 100 yards rushing and a touchdown -- George had 65 yards and Jeff had 60-plus yards with two touchdowns and Hunter had 50-plus yards with a touchdown and had a second touchdown called back. And quarterback Owen Castleman had 50 yards rushing, so we felt that we were able to run the ball. We 435 yards of total offense."
Gag added a pick six on defense.
"And we had two additional ones -- Brody Powers had a great read on one, but George set the tone early and last year our first score [against Austin] was a pick six as well."
Lieser said he was a little nervous about the first game with the game being pushed back and the Eagles did warmups with no shoulder pads because of the heat and the long road trip.
Lieser said he was happy with both his offense and defense in the win.
"We held them to 60 yards rushing and other than two pass plays we gave up one or two completions," he said. "And offensively we ran the ball as well as we did all of last year, so I was happy with both sides of the ball. We only had one pre-snap penalty and that came late in the fourth quarter."
The Eagles host Fairmont this Friday at 7 p.m. at New Ulm High School Eagles Field.
CHARGERS LOSE ROAD GAME TO MINNEOTA
Minnesota Valley Lutheran head football coach Jim Buboltz knew going into their season opener at defending four-time Class A football champion Minneota that it would be a tough test for the Chargers.
"They are a tough team -- a tough place to play and they have a great atmosphere there," Buboltz said. "And they are riding one of the longest winning streaks (47) in the nation right now."
Stephen-Argyle holds the Minnesota high school record at 76.
"[Minneota] got off of the ball faster -- they are much faster than any team we have seen," Buboltz said. "There was a definite differential in speed. I did not think that we were overmatched physically -- their speed gave us some issues. We got behind and then got tired and then it was kind of psychological from there."
Buboltz said that offensively his team was able to make some plays but not sustain drives.
"We would get a first down on a longer play and then if we tried to grind it out three or four yards at a time we did not do what we needed to do to get that next first down to keep the chains moving," he said.
Buboltz said that turnovers were not an issue in the game.
"We had one right away and that was it but then we got one right back," Buboltz said. "We were just chasing them all game long and just got tired."
Buboltz said that a lot of the inexperienced players got some varsity minutes in the game.
"Ben Reisgraf had 101 yards rushing and I thought that he and Chase [Tweit 44, yards] and El [Schauland, 33 yards] and Andy [Enter] are going to have nice year for us. We have to keep sticking with it. We have to keep working defensively, too."
Buboltz said his squad will look to improve in the trenches.
"It could also be better on the line of scrimmage for us -- they were not bigger but they just got off of the ball faster than we did," he said. "It was a change of pace for everyone and evident right away."
The Chargers are at home this coming Friday at 8 p.m. at Johnson Field when they host Le Sueur-Henderson.