Red zone failures haunted Hounds

NEW ULM -- When you get into the red zone of an opponent, you need to take advantage of those chances. Friday night, New Ulm Cathedral twice drove deep into Red Rock Central territory only to see drives fizzle because of incompleted passes or a turnover.

And both drives were within six inches or less of a touchdown for the Hounds. In the first quarter, following a Red Rock Central score, quarterback Tony Moldan just missed wide receiver Jacob Mertz in the end zone on a fourth down from the Falcon 5.

Then, in the third quarter, following Mitch Palmer's recovery of a Red Rock Central fumble, Cathedral worked its way to the Falcon 14-yard line where a Moldan screen pass was picked off by 6-foot-5 defensive tackle Shawn Huls, who rumbled 78 yards to the Hound 2-yard line. Two potential scores lost. Still, Cathedral Denny Lux was upbeat after the loss.

"We moved the ball offensively, which we did not do last week," he said as running back Luke Schmitz carried the ball nine times for 87 yards. "But defensively, we are still getting out of alignmen. We are still double-guessing what out alignment is."

Cathedral's defense was led by junior Jimmy Vancura who had 23 tackles, most of them coming from meeting Falcon running back Colby Pack.

OFFENSE CONTROLS FIRST QUARTER: The Hounds' offense did a good job of controlling the Red Rock Central defensive line in the first quarter, running 19 offensive plays to 10 for Red Rock. But the final three quarters saw Cathedral's offense get only 31 total snaps.

"We need to step up our red zone execution," said Lux. "When you get down there, every player has to do their job because the field is condensed so much that there is not margin for error."

He said that the Red Rock Central defense did not do anything different after the Cathedral scoring drive. "They have good defensive players. We have a young offensive line (two juniors, two sophomores and a senior) and they will learn from this. They took some plays away from us that made our play selection minimal. I felt coming into this game that if we had 300 yards on offense that we could win." The Hounds had 241 yards total offense.

"Our time is going to come when we will make the big plays. Right now, our opponents are making them."

FUMBLES, JITTERS HURT CHARGERS: Minnesota Valley Lutheran coach Jim Buboltz felt that two early fumbles and some early nervousness in the game played a big part in the Chargers' 36-28 loss to McLeod West. " We felt like we spotted them 24 points -- the fumbles hurt. We were trying to do to much. "

And when you give the ball up to an offense that features the state's best running back in Tyler Evans (two games, 541 yards) that means trouble.

"You see him coming -- No. 5 -- behind that big offensive line and it is scary," Buboltz said. "

But MVL did contain Evans a little better in the second half when they moved their defensive ends out one player. "We got them away from the tight ends," Buboltz said. "Their coaching staff made some good decisions; they run pitches and counters (at the defensive ends), And their quarterback carried the ball a lot (seven times) on keepers. That puts pressure on our ends.

"We moved the ball well -- they never stopped us. We stopped ourselves with the fumbles. Our offensive line looked good."

Buboltz praised the play of quarterback Josh Dettmann (79 yards rushing with two touchdowns and 8-for-19 passing for 142 yards passing with a score). "He played well. No interceptions compared to four last week. Andy and Jake Beilke had great games at outside linebacker with 16 and 11 tackles respectively. But there were a couple of times where they met Evans and were hurting more than he was. We played at a high level for three quarters; it was just that first quarter. The heart is there for us."

TURNOVERS AGAIN PLAGUE EAGLES: Last week in a 27-13 loss to Luverne, New Ulm High turned the ball over three times. Friday night, mistakes again haunted the Eagles.

"We had seven turnovers and that killed us," said New Ulm High coach Rick VanRoekel. " Our two scores came from our defense (Matt Furth scored and Tim Smith took a fumble down to the Cardinal 2-yard line). "We were ahead 14-0 after one quarter, but we could not move the ball offensively. We had one good drive the whole night and that was first series of the second half. ... Too many mistakes."

VanRoekel said tight end Travis Fleck played well and did a nice job blocking. On defense, Isaac Forstner, Jamie Hoffmann and Charles Ganske (15 tackles) played well, but we need all 11 to play well. The kids are feeling bad. It was a game that we had a chance to win. Then we had a blocked punt with three minutes to go and they took over on our 20-yard line and scored to win the game. Those things cannot happen again."

Column by Jim Bastian, Journal Sports Writer