New Ulm schools to face tough competition Friday

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- Two of New Ulm's three high school football teams will be at home for contests in week two, and two of the teams will attempt to win their second straight game this weekend.

Friday night at Johnson Field, New Ulm Cathedral hopes to rebound from a opening-week loss to Sleepy Eye Public when they host MLBO. Meanwhile, Minnesota Valley Lutheran travels to Waterville to take on WEM that same night.

New Ulm High School, fresh off a 43-15 thrashing of Luverne Friday night, hosts BOLD Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. at Johnson Field.

Here are previews of this week's games.

MLBO (1-0) AT NEW ULM CATHEDRAL (0-1)

JOHNSON FIELD 7 P.M.

New Ulm Cathedral head football coach Denny Lux knows that traditionally, MLBO is a strong team and he expects the Wolverines to be a tough opponent for the Greyhounds Friday night.

"They had a lot of success last year, and I am sure that their players will want to feed off of that," said Lux. "And they will want to continue that success against us."

Leading MLBO is quarterback Grant Wahl and fullback Mark DeYoung, who Lux says is a good three-sport athlete.

"They also have some linemen that are solid players, so offensively they do give you some threat with their speed and with their backs," he said.

Defensively, Lux sees the Wolverines "needing to fill a few holes from last year's team. They had a lot of seniors last year," he said. "But they put Mark DeYoung at middle linebacker and Grant Wahl at safety. So with those two good players in the middle of the field, we do expect them to be in a lot plays."

Lux said that there is a mixture of juniors and seniors, "but at any time they will also play two or three sophomores. They have some young kids who look like the have stepped up and are playing well for them."

Offensively, MLBO will come at the Cathedral defense with the Power-I formation.

"They also run out of some "I" and try and trap up the middle with their fullback or try and take their tailback off-tackle," Lux said.

Lux feels that the Greyhounds defensively "must get our linebackers into the run-stopping mode. Coming off of our loss to Sleepy Eye, we must do that. This week, our linebackers are working on getting upfield and getting penetration across the line of scrimmage. That is the biggest thing -- we need to stop the run."

On defense, MLBO will show a 5-3 defense.

"That will make our offensive tackles work harder," Lux said. "But the key for us is that we have a number of threats on offense in receivers and backs -- that does not let their defense focus on any one player on our team.

"We expect to have Dustin Hillesheim back, and that gives us one more solid offensive threat," he said. "He will also help us in our (defensive secondary) and also on our special teams. He will also back up Jeff Schnobrich in the backfield and he can also come in as a receiver."

Lux feels that his team can play better on offense then they did last week against Sleepy Eye. He feels that if the line stays aggressive, they will be fine.

"But we need to make a step up on defense," he said. "We will need good play from our defensive ends in John Wurtzberger and Andy Klingler, along with Scott Knisley and Joe Hazuka. Our outside linebackers (Joey Lux, Adam Koch, Kyle Reinarts) also need big games. We may look at Ryan Turbes there, because we need to stop this team on the perimeter."

MINNESOTA VALLEY LUTHERAN (1-0) AT WEM (1-0) WATERVILLE 7 P.M.

Jim Buboltz, head football coach at MVL, knows that his team is in for a physical game Friday night in their Gopher/Valley Conference battle with Waterville-Elysian-Morristown.

"They hit hard and they like to settle around that type of play," said Buboltz. "We need to match that."

Offensively, WEM is primarily a running team, "but they do run some play-action passes and some boot-legs passes, and rollouts off of those runs work well for them."

WEM has backs that weigh 205 and 24 pounds.

Defensively, WEM runs a wide-four defense "similar to a radar defense -- real man-to-man," Buboltz said. "They like to pressure in the middle and bring their middle linebackers and center around that. They pack the middle hard and are a good size team with good speed, and they will be ready."

Last week, WEM beat Maple River 8-7.

"They are built around their power -- they like to be powerful, so we need to match that intensity and desire, or else it will be a long night," he said.

Defensively, Buboltz feels that the Charger defense "has to be up to the task. Our hitting has to be up to where it was on Friday (against GFW). That will center around our linebacker play with Kyle Compart, Nate Nass, Tyler Morgan and Dustin Lange along with Luke Beilke. The linebacker play is the first key to the game."

Secondly, he feels that the Chargers cannot turn the ball over.

"We turned the ball over against GFW, but another week of practice at quarterback for Andy Beilke will be great," he said. "That whole theory of your best athlete touching the ball is one that we want to do."

Buboltz feels that his team knows that they need to play better than they did last week against Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop.

"Our seniors and upperclassmen have been great in trying to get the new players on that mindset," Buboltz said. "WEM will bring it Friday, and we need to match that."

BOLD (1-0) AT NEW ULM HIGH SCHOOL (1-0)

SATURDAY, 1 P.M.

JOHNSON PARK

Bird Island-Olivia-Lake Lillian District will come into Johnson Park Saturday afternoon with some big linemen back from last year's very good team.

"They have all new skilled position players and have a good tailback who looked good in films (of BOLD's win over Minneota last week)," said Eagle coach Rick VanRoekel. "Even though they lost a lot of players, they will have some decent players."

BOLD will primarily run out of the "I" formation "and run straight ahead. With those big linemen, all in the 230 to 240 pound range, our whole key is to be a little bit quicker than they are," he said.

BOLD runs both the 5-3 and 4-3 defenses and VanRoekel says their linebackers are good.

"It looks like they got eight or nine players going both ways," he said. "They will not be easy to push around, so hopefully we can get outside."

VanRoekel said that his team has worked on tackling this week.

"I thought that we played fairly well last week, but our tackling was terrible. We need to be able to tackle," he said. "Last year against BOLD, our tackling was terrible. It was probably the worst game of the year as far as tackling goes. That is what we are preaching all week.''

He added that after seeing films of last week's game against Luverne, he was happy overall.

"We played a good first game, but there is still room for improvement," he said. "We never had an illegal procedure at all, which is unheard of in a first game of the year. We only had one fumble -- if we can keep that up, we will be okay."

Offensively, VanRoekel is very happy with the play of the skilled position players in backs Kevin Neidecker and Spencer Dickinson, along with quarterback Jon Koeckeritz.

"It is a fun backfield to watch, because there are so many weapons there," he said.

The Eagles also have solid wide receivers in junior John Besser and senior Brett Burgau.

"Coach Rob Butte was saying last year how good a receiver John was last year, and he did not disappoint," VanRoekel said. "We also have Brett Burgau -- we did not throw to him, but he has good hands and an excellent blocker. Burgau had three or four blocks last week that led to big gains for us."