St. Mary's stifles Cathedral, 12-2

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- Prior to their Section 2A football playoff game with New Ulm Cathedral, Sleepy Eye St. Mary's football coach Ron Berdan was concerned with the wind, which was blowing north to south at Johnson Field, being a factor in the contest.

As it turned out, he did not have to worry about the wind.

The St. Mary's defense held Cathedral to 132 yards in offense and forced three Hound turnovers as the Knights avenged a regular season loss to Cathedral with a 12-2 win over the Greyhounds Saturday afternoon.

The Knights, now 7-3, will host McLeod West Friday night at 7 p.m. in the Section 2-A finals.

The Falcons, seeded fourth, shocked top-seeded Mankato Loyola 34-8.

'This was, once again, a hard-fought ballgame," said Berdan who took over the Knights this season after a short absence as head coach. "It was hard-fought on both sides and the game was not really over until there were about three minutes left in the ballgame."

"This game played out kind of like I figured that it would -- I knew that it would be a defensive game," Cathedral coach Denny Lux said. "Through most of the game, that is what it was. They ended up with decent field position a couple of times and ended up scoring on us. They had a good game plan on offense and defense. They were playing a more traditional defense with the safety out there so they would not get beat down the middle. And we did want to run the ball more because of that. We knew that we could not give up field position and trunovers and it caught us today."

The Knights used the second Hound turnover of the first quarter to ignite their first scoring drive. Adam Neubauer, after gaining four yards on a second down play, fumbled on his own 28-yard line with the Knights recovering.

Two carries by Andy Cook (19 carries, 107 yards in the game) a seven yard run by Jake Bohnen and a first down run by Brett Braulick moved the ball to the Hounds' 17-yard line. Cook broke off a seven yard run before Paul Fuchs high-stepped for nine yards to the one yard line where Fuchs finished the drive with a one-yard scoring run at the 10:27 mark for a 6-0 lead after the failed extra point.

"That (the fumble) was a break for us," said Berdan. "That was huge for us."

A 34-yard kick-off return on the ensuing kick-off by Dusty Wilfahrt gave the Hounds decent field position at the Hounds 47-yard line. They moved the ball to the Knights' 23-yard line -- aided by a pass interference call -- but end up facing a fourth down and seven from the Knights' 23- yard line. The Hounds reached into their bag of tricks, as Neubauer handed the ball off to halfback Dusty Wilfahrt who passed the ball back to Neubauer.

But Tim Braulick sniffed the play out, picking off the aerial and stalling the best Cathedral drive of the first half.

Three times the Hounds entered Knight country in the first 24 minutes but two turnovers stopped drives.

St. Mary's defense forced the Hounds to punt on their first possession of the second half where they took over on their own 41 yard line.

From there, St. Mary's pieced together a well-designed, 13 play, 59 yard scoring drive.

"I was particularly impressed with that drive," said Berdan. "We moved the ball on the ground (12 of the 13 plays were runing play) but more important, we took time off of the clock (almost seven minutes)."

It was a drive in which the Knights also had to battle themselves, getting flagged four times (ending with nine penalties for 74 yards in the game) in the drive.

Cook, Fuchs and Bohnen all had big runs in the drive with Bohnen connecting with Fuchs for an 11-yard gain on the only pass play of the drive.

It would end with Cook bolting in from two yards out and a 12-0 lead at the 3:33 mark.

"We were having a heck of a time with Cathedral's defensive limne -- we were having a heck of a time with them in the first half," said Berdan. "They were shooting through gaps and we were having trouble picking them up. We talked about that at halftime and we told our guards that they had to make the adjustment -- they have to know where the play is going. In the first half when we tried a sweep with our backside running back, they were getting to much penetration and tackling them in the backfield."

The Hounds' special teams put them on the board with :38 left in the third quarter when Brady Gulden blocked a Knight punt which rolled out of the end zone for a safety.

Cathedral saw a potential scoring drive end in St. Mary's terriory on the 28-yard line on an intentional grounding call with just over five minutes left in the game.

"I do want to give our kids and our seniors a lot of credit," said Lux. "I do think that we got the most out of ourselves this year. We are proud of the things that we did this year."

SE ST. MARY'S 0 6 6 0--12

NU CATHEDRAL 0 0 2 0 -- 2

SECOND QUARTER

SESM: Fuchs, one run. PAT: Failed.

THIRD QUARTER

SESM: Cook, two run. PAT: Failed.

CATHEDRAL: Safety, Brady Gulden blocked punt out of end zone.