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Greyhounds hit back, drop Raiders

Lux earns 200th career coaching win

By Travis Rosenau 5 min read

NEW ULM -- When the Nicollet Raiders opened Saturday night's Nine-Player South District, West Subdistrict football game with a nine-play touchdown drive, the New Ulm Cathedral Greyhounds weren't surprised.

They weren't worried either.

Scoring 42 unanswered points after that, the Greyhounds went on to rout the Raiders 42-6 and earn head coach Denny Lux his 200th career win.

"The biggest thing is it's all the parents that were always supportive of the program, the players, the coaches," Lux said of his milestone achievement. "To me the most special thing is it's always been at Cathedral. That's the only place I've ever coached."

Lux said he wasn't surprised to see the Raiders moving the ball down the field with sweeps and passes throughout the night, which had the most success on their first drive of the game. But it was a bend-but-don't-break approach that kept the Greyhounds in the right frame of mind to rattle off 42 points in a row.

"Nicollet's a really good football program," Lux said. "They've got a lot of section titles, they've been in the state tournament. They have a lot of nine-man experience, and you could see it on the field today. When the game got going early, they're running reverses, and those aren't trick plays, those are the plays that teams in nine-man do to try to open up the field.

"I'm just really proud of my players from the offensive guys to the defensive guys, we were making wonderful plays. The d-backs, they had to go up and the balls that [Nicollet quarterback Abe Madson] was throwing to his receivers were on the mark, their guy caught a few but we knocked a number of them out."

The Raiders' nine-play scoring drive to open the game was aided with a 36-yard sideline catch by Henry Kennedy, which was followed with a pair of runs and a 3-yard QB keeper for a score by Abe Madson. The 2-point try was no good and the Raiders led 6-0 with 8:23 left in the first quarter.

Then it was the Greyhounds' turn.

It took Cathedral just five plays on their first drive to hit pay dirt, with a pitch to Portner on the right side going 26 yards for a score. A 2-point throw by Eli Anderson to Hudson Lieser made it 8-6.

"We've been working hard all week in practice," Portner said. "Our motto is to get one percent better every week and get better than the week before. We knew they were going to come out scoring, so we just had to answer back and that's what we did."

The Greyhounds didn't punt or turn it over at all in the first half and after forcing a Nicollet turnover on downs, turned their next drive into a 5-yard TD run by Portner and 14-6 lead with 11:56 left in the half.

A Josh Forstner interception set the Greyhounds up for another scoring drive moments later, which looked like it was going to finish with a 46-yard TD run by Anderson. However, a block in the back took the run back and forced the Greyhounds into a second-and-14 scenario from their own 40. After a short run, Anderson got it done with his arm with a 57-yard touchdown pass to Forstner down the sideline for a 22-6 lead after Portner's 2-point conversion run.

With less than a minute left in the half, Portner broke loose on the right side of the field and ran it 82 yards for a touchdown and 30-6 lead after a Forstner 2-point conversion catch with 29 seconds left in the half.

"[The o-line does] a great job," Portner said. "They work hard all week in practice and it's really easy for me to read the hole and do what I need to do."

On its first drive to start the second half, Cathedral fumbled the ball, which was recovered by Maxwell Kuttner at the Greyhounds 49. Another nice catch by Kennedy of 28 yards set the Raiders up at the Cathedral 19 and after getting into a first-and-goal situation, the Greyhounds defense stood strong and forced a turnover on downs after back-to-back incompletions.

The Greyhounds punted for the first time all game after that, but the defense forced Nicollet into another turnover on downs to get the Greyhounds up at their own 38. Following a 20-yard run by Portner, Anderson found Forstner open again for a 42-yard touchdown pass and 36-6 lead.

After another turnover on downs by Nicollet, the Greyhounds got their final score of the night on a misdirection play that allowed Blake Aufderheide to rumble down the field for a 43-yard TD run.

Portner finished with 22 carries for 207 yards.

Camden Berg had 12 total tackles, while Anderson had five tackles, Evan Blekestad had four tackles.

The Greyhounds moved to 4-1 on the year with the win, while Nicollet suffered its first loss of the season and dropped to 4-1. Cathedral is at Mountain Lake Area next on Friday night, while Nicollet hosts undefeated Wabasso on Friday night.

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