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Greyhounds blank Cougars in Homecoming game

By Ari Selvey 3 min read

NEW ULM -- New Ulm Cathedral earned its second shut-out performance of the season on Saturady, defeating Cedar Mountain 37-0 in a Nine-player South District, West Subdistrict football game at Johnson Field in Cathedral's Homecoming game.

"The number one thing is our pursuit," Cathedral head coach Denny Lux said. "Our pursuit is excellent. Everybody is getting to the ball. The d-backs know they can't be first to the ball because of what their responsibilities are, but our pursuit is excellent."

Lux credited nose tackle Nolan Netzke for a big game defensively.

"He does a lot of good things for us, not only at nose, but also our center," Lux said. "Our nucleus revolves around him a little bit in the middle of the field. We've got good speed, we've got enough strength were we've been making it tough on other teams so far."

Alex Portner led the offense with 18 carries for 151 yards and three touchdowns, while Eli Anderson had seven carries for 39 yards and two touchdowns. Blake Aufderheide added four carries for 21 yards and Hunson Lieser had four carries for 26 yards. Defenisvely, Anderson had 10 tackles, while Aufderheide had nine tackles and Evan Blekestad had 12 tackles and an interception. Camden Berg added nine tackles.

The teams exchanged punts and turnovers on downs in the first quater, but Cathedral broke through as Portner weaved through traffic for a 27-yard rushing touchdown to make it a 6-0 game with 5:29 left in the first.

"Portner doesn't need much of a hole," Lux said. "The biggest thing Alex does is he stays square to the line of scrimmage no matter where he's at. He's able to go left or right -- he never turns his shoulders which locks him into one direction. He made some fantastic runs today."

Cathedral scored again on its next drive, with Portner taking a 32-yard rush down to the 3-yard line, then scored the touchdown for a 14-0 lead before halfitme.

Cathedral's offense continued to score in the third quarter, with Portner scoring from 21 yards out for a 22-0 advantage. (12) had a 20-yard run to set up a QB sneak by Anderson for another Cathedral touchdown and a 30-0 lead to wrap up the third quarter.

"Cedar Mountain, they're quick, they're aggressive," Lux said. "They're going to put guys up there and pressure the running game. We decided at half that we were going to just run straight at them. Get our strength against theirs and not let too many of their players involved. Once you run to the edges, you get a lot of defensive pressure from a lot of players. That was the biggest change at halftime, was to let our seniors be the leaders up front and go straight at them."

Cathedral added one more touchdown in the fourth -- a 12-yard scramble by Anderson -- to close out the 37-0 victory.

Cathedral improves to 3-0 and will face 3-0 Wabasso in Wabasso next Saturday at 1 p.m.

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