Schreiber calls Hounds' loss disappointing

NEW ULM -- New Ulm Cathedral senior defensive end/tight end Billy Schreiber said the Hounds 19-13 loss Friday night to Wabasso was "very disappointing.

"I have been thinking about that game all weekend, watching the (game) film and wondering what went wrong," he said. "I was just kind of numb after the game and have been thinking about it more. It is starting to hit me and it is real disappointing."

Schreiber,one of eight seniors on the team, said it was a case "of us looking at the game (last) Monday and feeling that it was a winnable game. And then walking into the game confident, not over-confident."

Cathedral scored on a pass from Dusty Wilfahrt to Tom Hazuka as time ran out in the first half. The score gave the Hounds a 13-9 lead, a lead despite totaling only 33 yards of offense in the first half.

"We were confident that we could get things going in the second half," Schreiber said. "But when it stalled, I don't think that we knew what to do. We just did not dig down deep to get those extra yards that we needed."

TEAM STILL HAS CONFIDENCE: Despite the third straight loss by the Hounds, Schreiber feels the team still has confidence.

"(The losses) are more a matter of us executing," he said. "We know that we can get it done. We need to keep working hard in practice and carry that over to the game. We are a better team than we have shown. We are still jelling."

PLAY FARIBAULT BETHLEHEM ACADEMY WEDNESDAY: Schreiber feels playing this Wednesday after a short week of practice "may be a good thing because the loss will still be fresh on our minds and that bad taste in our mouth will still be there and we will want to get rid of it. There will be no reason to come out flat against them."

BALBACH IS MISSED: One of the key losses this season, and it has been written about a lot lately, is the loss of linebacker Shane Balbach due to a knee injury.

"We did not know him (Balbach transferred from Minneota) coming in this year," Schreiber said. "We did not know him as a person. But we now know him as a friend and on the field he is such a spark. He got us going. When it looked like they were going to score, he would be the one to get us going ( defensively). We miss that because right now. We did not have that against Wabasso when we needed someone to hit that back behind the line."

GAME IS IMPORTANT: Schreiber said he hopes the Hounds know the importance of this game and not look ahead to the playoffs and concentrate on the upcoming game.

"Sometimes, guys get too excited and forget about each individual play and how important execution on each play is," he said. "That is what we try to stress in practice. We cannot take each play likely and we need to concentrate on each one. When it comes down to the game it is the form tackle or that good block on the line that makes the difference."

WASECA WIN WAS BIG: New Ulm High linebacker/quarterback Charles Ganske said the Eagles' win Friday night over Waseca meant a lot to the team.

"It meant a lot as far as section and (South Central Conference) goes," he said. "It felt good to beat a team that was 6-0. It was a good confidence booster from the game with St. Peter where we lost a close game and could have won. We played really well overall."

Ganske said the team did not lose confidence even after they lost their first two games of the season.

"We did not play well in the game against Luverne," Ganske said. "We pretty much had Redwood Valley but then we blew that game. And that is what happened last year (losing the first two games of the year) so we have been in that same situation. We knew that things would come out OK if we just kept our heads up and kept playing hard.

"I think that beating St. Louis Park (after two losses) really helped. Just going up to the Twin Cities, now knowing what to expect and playing well, it felt good to beat a Cities team."

He said there was not one specific game that got the Eagles going.

"I think that our game Friday night was perhaps our best game yet," Ganske said. "Our defensive and offensive lines really played well. There will be no chance of a letdown (Wednesday) against Fairmont. We will not be overconfident."

GANSKE BACK AT QUARTERBACK: Ganske started the season as quarterback for the Eagles prior to sustaining a quad pull that put junior Bobby Wellman at quarterback. Now, Wellmann is lost for the season after an ankle injury last week.

"It doesn't matter to me if I am playing both ways. I like playing both ways because it lets me stay in the flow of the game more," Ganske said.

COLLEGES LOOKING AT GANSKE: Ganske is without a doubt one of the best linebackers to ever come out of New Ulm and he has a lot of colleges looking at him.

"The NCC schools -- North Dakota, North Dakota State, South Dakota State along with the University of Minnesota have shown interest," he said. "Also the Ivy League schools (Ganske has a 4.0 in the classroom and scored very high on his ACT) like Princeton, Penn, Yale, Harvard have shown interest."

Ganske also attended the football camps at Nebraska for the last two years. "At Nebraska, there are so many guys on their roster. I don't know about them."

He hopes to major in engineering in college.

HAVEMEIER PLAYING FOR STORM: Loren Havemeier is on the third line of the Tri-City Storm of the United States Hockey League. He scored three goals and two assists last year in 29 games.