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NEW ULM -- New Ulm Cathedral's Alex Portner's six touchdowns in the 57-6 win over Renville County West Wednesday night tied Adam Schnobrich's single-game mark set in 2011 and along with 242 yards rushing.
Portner now also holds the career touchdown mark of with 45, breaking the old mark of 40 set by Ted Skillings.
Portner holds another career mark with a current total of 2,816 career rushing yards, which breaks the former record of 2,272 set by Erik Olsen in 2006.
This season thus far, Portner has run for 1,135 yards and 23 touchdowns.
Cathedral head football coach Denny Lux said that his team came off of the bus Wednesday and played really well and felt that the entire tone of the game was set by a stingy Greyhounds defense.
"All of our players were really disciplined defensively," Lux said of the Cathedral defense that has allowed only an average of 7.6 points a game this season.
"They stayed in their positions and made the plays right away. Coach [Jesse] Nosbush [defensive coordinator] is really pleased with how the guys are playing. We play this defense where we do not always have a free safety, so our d-backs are manned up, so they have to play smart. [Nosbush] is one of the few coaches who has been here long enough to where our players are growing up into their positions. And they understand the philosophy.
"And of course when we get the ball offensively, from Andrew Stern to Nolan Netzke to Camden Berg to Lane Ruch and Josh Forstner, our offensive line just took control early, and Alex ranks up with the best backs that we have had here in the last 15 years."
Lux said that the best move that was made in the offseason to build the offense was moving Lane Ruch from the fullback spot to the offensive line.
"Lane and Camden are two leaders on our offensive line," Lux said. "That has made all of the difference this year. We give our guys a lot of credit over the years where they change positions, and they do not look back at all -- they do whatever the team needs."
While the Greyhounds offense is scoring 44.9 points per game, Lux feels that when the fans watch Cathedral now compared to the first two games, they can see that the Greyhounds have improved a lot.
"We know we want to keep improving and every game is a big game," he said. "And we could not be prouder of how the team has played and have played disciplined."
Cathedral (6-1) hosts Edgerton Tuesday at 4 p.m. at Johnson Field.
EAGLES FALL TO ST. PETER
New Ulm Eagles head football coach Derek Lieser felt that his team did not play up to their ability level in a 31-21 road loss to St. Peter Wednesday.
"Especially in the first half." Lieser said. "Offensively we had a tough time moving the ball. We had one long run, but we struggled to move the ball and throughout the game -- and it was a repeated scene -- we did not tackle well. We had emphasized tackling during the week and we did not tackle well -- we allowed too many yards after contact and for the first time all season we got beat a little bit."
It was also a game where they played without starting quarterback Owen Castleman, who suffered a season-ending injury late in the loss to TCU the previous week.
"He had an injury in that game that he discovered over last weekend, so we went into practice on Monday knowing that he was out for the year," Lieser said. "We did not anticipate that, but I thought that Owen Drill stepped in admirably and played a really good second half. He did not have a turnover and had two nice long touchdown passes to Brenton Seidl and Owen used his legs really well and he did well for a sophomore in his first varsity start."
Ironically, Castleman got his first varsity start two years ago when then-Eagles quarterback Preston Holberg went down with season-ending injury.
"It is never easy when you lose your starting quarterback because it is such a key position." Lieser said. "So we will rely on Owen Drill to grow and get better -- it is such a key position because it is only one of two positions who touches the ball every single play. And we did not run the ball well enough in the game and allow Owen to lean on that -- and we need to keep Owen clean in the pocket, he got hit a few times."
The Eagles, now 4-3, host 6-1 Waseca Wednesday.
CHARGERS PLAY LCWM TOUGH
If there was a turning point in the Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers football game against Lake Crystal-Welcome Memorial Wednesday night, it may have come on the Chargers' opening drive when they marched right down the field and got down to the Knights' 4-yard line but failed to score.
"Then they drove the ball down the field -- we stopped them -- and we went down the field and scored." Chargers head coach Jim Buboltz said. "It should have been 14-0 in the first quarter. That obviously would have been a big difference -- getting the first score was big, but giving up a touchdown right before half was not ideal by any means. But getting up 14-0 could have changed the flow of the game for sure. But it was a really good game by two competitive teams."
LCWM won 21-7, but as Buboltz said, the final touchdown with under two minutes came when the Knights had the ball at fourth and inches.
"They had two fourth-down conversions at the end of the game to seal the game away." Buboltz said. "It was a game of inches for both teams -- it was a play here or there."
Buboltz said coming off of the schedule the the Chargers have had for the last two weeks (playing Jackson County Central and Luverne), he was happy to see his players really step up for the game.
"They keep putting it out there and that can serve us well for the next couple of weeks going forward," he said.
Buboltz said he was happy with the play of his defense in allowing only 21 points to a team that had been averaging 38 points a game.
"That is a high-scoring offense that can put a lot of points on the board." he said. "And we held them to just a couple of touchdowns with the exception of the late score -- I am pretty happy with that. That definitely made the step-up that we wanted on the defensive side. That is a good step forward for us.
"And we were so fast, especially the first quarter and a half -- we really played fast and gave us an advantage. But eventually they kept it close to where their size took over and it did in the second half."
The Chargers (3-4) are home Tuesday at 8 p.m. at Johnson Field as they host Sibley East.
"To win at home on Tuesday to get a home playoff game would be great," Buboltz said.