Big weekend as all New Ulm teams have home games

NEW ULM -- If you are a high school football fan here in New Ulm, you can get your gullet full of the pigskin this weekend here in town as all three high school football teams will be at home for conference games.

The "football feeding frenzy" begins with New Ulm High School's Homecoming game with South Central Conference foe Waseca Friday night at 7 p.m. (with a tail-gate party sponsored by HyVee beginning at 5:45 that night), continues Saturday afternoon with a matinee contest at 1 p.m. between Minnesota Valley Lutheran and Madelia in a Gopher/Valley match-up and concludes Saturday night with a Southern Minnesota clash between Springfield and the Greyhounds of New Ulm Cathedral.

So if you like high school football, Johnson Field is the place to be this weekend.

WASECA AT NEW ULM 7 P.M. FRIDAY JOHNSON FIELD

Both teams are coming off South Central Conference wins last week with the Bluejays beating Blue Earth while the Eagles topped St. James.

And according to Eagle coach Rick VanRoekel, it will be an interesting match-up for New Ulm in their second straight home contest.

"In comparison to other teams that we have faced,their line is not quite as big as others," he said. "They do have a very good running back -- he kind of reminds we of (St.James's) Tyler Kaus. He is a scatback that has speed and makes things happen. Defensively, that is our big concern right now -- we need to stop him."

Keeping the Jays' running game in check will be a key to the success of the Eagles in their Homecoming contest.

"They are primarily a running team. Their quarterback is lefthanded. They can pass the ball but their game-plan is to run the ball."

On defense, Waseca shows a 5-3 defense. "They will stunt once in a while with the linebackers. They are solid on defense. They have a 3-1 record with their only loss to New Prague (in non-conference play) 29-28. They have won three straight and have played some good teams."

"They are a good team and our whole scheme is to execute on both sides of the ball and make sure that we do not have any turnovers on the offensive end."

And it may be a little harder for VanRoekel to keep his team's mind entirely on the game because of all the homecoming festivities.

"That (keeping focus on the game) is something that always scares me," he said. "Last year we had a good team and got beat on homecoming. We have not had a lot of success in homecoming games. We have a decent team this year. There are a lot of good activities that you want the kids involved in but you have to make sure that they will be ready to play. It is kind of a double-challenge. Sometimes the kids get excited about playing in front of a bigger crowd and sometimes it is a big distraction. Every group of kids is different."

A weapon (or rather two weapons) that the Eagles will throw at Waseca is their tandem of running backs in junior Kevin Neidecker and senior Eric Austvold. In the game with Holy Angels, Neidecker rushed for 154 yards and last week Austvold ran wild for 234 yards.

"Both backs are very good -- with Eric playing defense, we can give him a break with Kevin."

And VanRoekel feels that the pair are the best in the SCC.

"They are a good 1-2 punch. St. James has Kaus, Waseca has theirs but we have the luxury of having two good backs that can spell each other. It puts a lot of pressure on the other team's defense late in the game when their defense is getting tired."

VanRoekel added that he is not sure who he will start at quarterback -- either junior Jon Koeckeritz or senior Bob Wellmann. "We have two good quarterbacks and that is another luxury. We are fortunate there.

"We need to stay focused. We have the potential to put points on the board but we need to slow them down with our defense. We need to be mentally focused to play. Last year, Waseca was 6-0 when we played them and beat them on their homecoming so I am sure that they will be ready to come over here and spoil our homecoming."

MADELIA AT MINNESOTA VALLEY LUTHERAN SATURDAY 1 P.M. JOHNSON FIELD

The Chargers enter their afternoon tussle with Madelia riding a three game winning streak.

"Madelia is a physical team -- they play solid defense," said MVL coach Jim Buboltz. "They have had some injuries on the year but some of those are starting to heal up. They seem to be a team that wants to get something going."

Madelia "prefers to run the ball but they will throw a play-action pass at you occasionally."

The Chargers also must be concerned about the Blackhawks' defense.

"They have a solid defense interior-wise . They show a lot of blitzing on the front line so our linemen are going to have to pick up that blitz."

And blitzing is something that Madelia will come at you with anytime.

"I would say that they will blitz 75-85 percent of the time," Buboltz said. "They resemble GFW in a way on defense but on offense they are like NRHEG."

To try and off-set the blitz. Buboltz hopes to do several things.

"We need to pick up that blitz first -- then we will go about doing our job. Our scheme has not changed. We have started to use our speed more the past few games -- against Maple River our speed was evident. With the speed of (quarterback) Karl Struck, (running back) Andy Beilke, Grant Holzhueter and then use our tight ends Jake Firle and Nathan Nass, we have started to put together a dangerous offensive package.

"We have more speed than they do and we work on that each day in practice."

Buboltz said his team "needs to not turn the ball over and to stop their running game. We also need to improve on our penalties -- we had 10 penalties against Maple River. We felt that we were the only team that stopped our offense last week with the penalties. We had three turnovers in that first half (last week). We were not very disciplined at all."

Playing a Saturday afternoon game "is OK. I think that everybody likes that extra day to heal and work. Right now, our kids are ready and we are focused.

"We cannot stop ourselves with (penalties and turnovers) -- stick with our game plan and continue to hit hard on defense."

SPRINGFIELD AT NEW ULM CATHEDRAL SATURDAY NIGHT 7 P..M JOHNSON FIELD

Both teams enter this game licking their wounds from losses last week. Springfield fell to Red Rock Central while the Greyhounds were tamed by McLeod West.

"Springfield, typically, is a physical team defensively -- they like to come up and hit," Cathedral coach Denny Lux said. "They have good ballplayers at the linebacker spot and also have a quick nose-guard. Plus their defensive ends look strong. It is your typical Springfield defensive team with their ability to get to the ball."

After their meeting with a huge McLeod West team last week, the Greyhounds will match-up better size-wise with the Tigers this week.

"On offense, the Tigers have been struggling the last couple weeks (no points the last two games) so our defense needs to be ready for any changes that they make in their offense," Lux said. "We could see some different things that they had not done previously. Defensively for us it is a case of staying intense and when they do throw the ball, make sure that we have players covered -- we need to pressure their quarterback."

One of the keys to this game, according to Lux, will be how each team responds to the defeats. "The team that can put (last week's) loss behind them, get ready for this game and be ready will probably win. We have had some good games with Springfield -- they have been intense contests. Players will have to maintain that intensity."

He added that the Hounds "need to continue what we have been doing. We had two scoring drives against McLeod West but we also had two nice long drives in the third quarter that showed a lot of promise. We just needed to finish them out. We will not make many changes on offense. We may look at a player here or their that we will work in."

Lux felt that the loss to McLeod West will not be tougher to rebound from then the overtime loss to Mountain Lake/Butterfield-Odin.

"We played a very good team in McLeod West. We feel that that game will make us tougher. We had our chances in the third quarter to tie that game up. So by no means does this loss affect anything that we do against Springfield."