Defense worked ... for awhile

NEW ULM -- Going into the Chargers' football game with Springfield Saturday afternoon, Minnesota Valley Lutheran head football coach Jim Buboltz's defensive game plan against the Tiger veer offense was to let their two linebackers roam and keep the offense in check.

And the game plan worked ... for a while.

"The first two or three series it worked for us," said Buboltz, "until we lost Joel Russow and Danny Bendix (two Charger starting linebackers) to injuries. When you lose those two, plus being without Dan Unke (out with foot injury), that is three of our starting four linebackers. We had to put some younger kids in the lineup who were not familiar with the defense. They (new kids) played tough, but we just gave up a lot more yards after those two players went out."

Russow, who had 20 yards on his first four carries, sprained his MCL "and we hope that it is no more than two or three weeks if he stays off of the leg. Danny separated a shoulder; they popped it back in right away. It is really sore but they do not expect miss any games."

MVL's defense forced six Tiger turnovers, the first of which resulted in a 7-0 Charger lead on a 45-yard scoring pass to Jesse Pfeifer from John Enter. "We hit the big play right away after Tim Nass had that big sack and then we scored," commented Buboltz. "You look at their (Springfield) experience, they are a pretty close-knit group and are experienced. They just decided after we came out hitting them hard, they said that we just have to hit them a little harder. They turned it up a notch and at that time they are turning it up a notch and we are dropping a couple of players and the momentum really swung there."

SIMILAR TO CATHEDRAL GAME: Buboltz said that the Charger game with Springfield "was very similar to the Cathedral game with Springfield.

"It was almost an identical situation. Cathedral went up 7-0, had everybody in the game and was having a good game against them and they lost their two middle linebackers (Brandon Reinarts and Matt Furth) and that was hard; it was almost a replica."

Ironically, Reinarts hurt a leg and Furth left that game with a shoulder injury, strikingly similar to what happened to the Chargers' Russow and Bendix

NOT HAVING FULL TEAM: Buboltz, who is in his first year as Charger head football coach, said that he has not had his team at full strength all season.

"This is hard because you come in and your starting team has only been together for one half of one game." Dan Unke was hurt in the Chargers' first game of the season against BLH, "but we are close to getting Dan back and now we get these two hurt."

Buboltz did say that his team "hit hard and their coach (Paul Dunn) told me that we were prepared and hit hard. They just have a lot of guys who are big and physical and took over the game."

Buboltz said that his team played well. "You take away one 70-yard run that they had, that puts them at 250 yards rushing. We limited them to only two big plays. Other than that, we made them earn it.

"When they wanted to pound it, they did. But I want to give Jon Beilke a lot of credit. We had him for close to 25 tackles and he was everywhere. Without Joel in there, he tried to do as much as he could."

NEIDECKER KEYS WIN: Micah Neidecker, who set a new school single-game rushing record of 269 yards against Blue Earth in the Eagles' 28-14 win, said that he felt that they could run the ball against the Bucs.

"They had a four-man front and they have a small defensive line," he said. "We thought that our bigger offensive line could pretty much determine where we wanted to run."

Neidecker, who rushed for 997 yards last year, now has 625 yards in four games and is closing in on the single-season mark of 1,184 set by Larry Zimmermann back in 1978.

Neidecker feels that his improvement, along with that of his team, is a case of maturity.

"I think that (maturity) is the case. Last year was my first year at tailback, so I didn't really know what to expect. But myself and the offensive line have worked together; it has helped quite a bit."

Neidecker and the rest of the team knew that coming into this year that there was a lot of potential. "We worked hard running and in the weightroom (in the offseason) together," he said. "We knew that it we all worked hard, we can have a good year."

Last year, Neidecker had a big game against Redwood Valley when he carried the ball nine times for 140 yards. But this year, he has dropped five pounds from 180 down to 175, which has "given me more speed. I wanted to be faster.

"But my offensive line has really given me some big holes to run through," he said. "It is a good feeling to know that the hole is going to be there. We are confident; the game against Detroit Lakes, we all found out that if we play well, we can play with anyone in the state."

BAUER AT LAKESIDE LUTHERAN: Jim Bauer, former head football and basketball coach at MVL and now an assistant football coach (as well as head basketball coach) at Lakeside Lutheran in Lake Mills, Wis. Lakeside is 3-1 so far this year in football.

Column by Jim Bastian, Journal sports writer