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Greyhounds win, cherry on top

By Travis Rosenau 7 min read

NEW ULM -- Tackling as a team and spreading things out offensively were winning ingredients for the New Ulm Cathedral Greyhounds on Friday at Johnson Field.

Adding a little extra flavor to the win was the promise of ice cream for earning a shutout.

After setting the tone early on for a 30-0 halftime lead, the Greyhounds stood their ground in the second half to shut out the Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart Mustangs 44-0 in a Nine-Man South District, West Subdistrict football game.

Greyhounds defensive coach Jesse Nosbush told his players earlier on this season if they won in a shutout, they'd get ice cream on Monday. Not that the Cathedral defense needed another incentive to keep the Mustangs from galloping into the end zone, but the promise of ice cream didn't hurt.

The Mustangs did have some size to their offensive line and running backs, but Nosbush said his players just had to wear them down.

"They have some big, strong kids on their team," Nosbush said. "They have some big running backs and they were tough to tackle. We just had to get a lot of bodies on them. Our guys just kept trying to wear them down."

Eli Anderson and Camden Berg both were in on 10 tackles to help lead the Greyhounds defense, while Evan Blekestad had nine tackles and a fumble recover, Nolan Netzke had eight tackles and Andrew Stern had seven tackles. Josh Forstner also had an interception for the Greyhounds.

The Mustangs had moments where they'd move the ball and pick up a first down, often on the ground, but the Greyhounds only allowed them into the red zone twice all game and forced a turnover on downs on both occasions.

"One of the things we really focus on is team tackling," Nosbush said. "We actually have a couple drills in practice that we did where we get all nine guys running to where the ball carrier is and it just makes it easy in games. Guys don't quit. They go through your blockers, everybody's got to get to the ball. That's very important to our defense."

The Cathedral offense, captained by senior quarterback Eli Anderson, got several big plays across the board. Anderson ended up completing all seven of his passes in the game for two touchdowns and 129 yards while also running eight times for 68 yards and a score. Forstner was just one big target for Anderson as he caught two touchdown passes, one a jump ball for 20 yards in the first quarter and the second a 33-yarder as the first half expired.

"Me and him have kind of had the connection our whole lives," Anderson said. "I've always been his quarterback and I know where he's going to go and how fast he is and I knew that I could trust both our wide receivers, Josh and Ryler [Collins] and I knew their routes and knew where they were gonna be and knew how to throw the ball no matter how the pressure was. Josh definitely beats a lot of defenders off the ball and I could tell right away that today would be a good day to run that and spread it out."

Forstner also caught a 2-point conversion pass, while Collins had 38 yards receiving and a 2-point conversion catch. On the ground, the Greyhounds were once again led by senior speedster Alex Portner, who took 15 carries for 197 yards and three TDs. Blake Aufderheide added three carries for 38 yards also for the Greyhounds.

After forcing BLHS to punt on its opening drive, the Greyhounds took over near midfield and quickly turned a third-and-1o into a 38-yard catch by Collins to get into the red zone. A pitch right to Portner finished the four-play drive with a 12-yard touchdown run and a 2-point catch by Collins made it 8-0.

Mustangs quarterback Carl Markgraf was picked off on the next Mustangs drive by Forstner and the Greyhounds turned that into another scoring drive, which was finished on a leaping 20-yard touchdown grab by Forstner in the end zone over a defender. A 2-point try on a run was no good and the Greyhounds led 14-0 with 2:46 left in the first quarter.

The Mustangs gained some ground on their next drive that went into the second quarter, with a 28-yard catch and run from Carl Markgraf to Marvin Markgraf setting them up at the Cathedral 18. After getting it to the 12, a pitch outside went for negative yardage on fourth-and-2 to turn it over on downs.

Wyatt Milbrath forced Anderson to fumble on the next Greyhounds drive, but the Greyhounds quickly got it back after a Mustangs fumble on fourth-and-7 from the Cathedral 28. Portner ten ripped off a 48-yard run down the sideline to set the Greyhounds up in the red zone, where they promptly scored on a 10-yard TD keeper by Anderson. A 2-point conversion throw to Forstner made it 22-0 with 5:09 left in the half.

The Mustangs moved the ball on the ground their next drive and got it to the Cathedral 20-yard line, but a pass from Carl Markgraf to the middle of the end zone fell incomplete to turn it over and give Cathedral just 17 seconds to work with in the half. They didn't need long as Portner took a handoff and cut left to the sideline before being tripped up after a 50-yard run that got the Greyhounds to the BLHS 30. Following a timeout, Anderson dropped back and tossed a deep ball to Forstner, who caught it near the 2-yard line and fell into the end zone. A 2-point catch by Collins made it 30-0 at the half.

After the Greyhounds got the ball to start the second half, they moved it down the field quickly, thanks in large part due to a 38-yard catch by Blekestad to set up a first-and-goal situation from the BLHS 7. After a couple of runs had the Greyhounds back a yard, Portner took a pitch to his left and found the end zone for the second time. The PAT kick by Stern was good with more than enough room to spare and the Greyhounds led 37-0 with eight minutes left in the third.

After forcing another BLHS turnover on downs, the Greyhounds finished another drive with points on a 15-yard TD run by Portner with 3:06 left in the third. Stern made his second PAT of the game and the Greyhounds led 44-0.

With running time in the fourth quarter, Anderson and several of his veteran teammates got to take time on the sideline as substitutions were made.

With a 2-0 start to the year, the Greyhounds are showing early on that they are comfortable. They're also showing why they're an early favorite to make some noise later in the year when the Section 2, nine-man playoffs begin, right alongside Wabasso, which shut out BLHS 63-0 in Wabasso a week ago.

"We do have a lot of guys that got a lot of experience last year," Nosbush said. "We've started a bunch of seniors on both sides of the ball. They're really starting to see things, the game is kind of slowing down a little bit for them.

"These guys played us tough. I never like playing a team that's coming off of a beatdown like last week because you never know, they're going to be angry and we don't want our kids to get overconfident about it. We just want to go out there and play our game."

Cathedral hosts Cedar Mountain next at 7 p.m. Friday night, while BLHS (0-2) hosts Nicollet at 7 p.m. Friday night.

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