Eagles take on Hutchinson to open 2AAAA tournament

File photo by Ari Selvey
New Ulm’s Noah Mertz scrambles away from pressure during a South District, Central-Red Subdistrict football game against Marshall on Wednesday, Oct. 16 at New Ulm High School.

NEW ULM — The New Ulm High School Eagles football team will open the postseason this Tuesday at 7 p.m. with a first-round playoff matchup at home.

The fourth-seeded Eagles (4-4) will play fifth-seeded Willmar (1-7) in the opening round of Section 2AAAA tournament at New Ulm High School.

Those looking at Willmar’s 1-7 season record and thinking the Cardinals are not a good football team should think again.

“They are probably the best 1-7 team in the state,” New Ulm High School head coach Derek Lieser said. “They played a gaunlet of a schedule. Five of their eight games were against top ten teams.”

Three of their losses were to teams that are still unbeaten at 8-0, including Princeton, Becker and Totino Grace. They also have a 33-7 loss to Marshall.

“They lost to Hutchinson (28-21), who is the defending [Class AAAA champion],” Lieser said. “They are certainly not a typical 1-7 type team, so we know that we have our hands full.”

Willmar will bring in a spread offense to their meeting with the Eagles.

“Their quarterback has a really nice arm — he is pretty shifty — and they have some receivers with a lot of size,” Lieser said. “And their speed is deceptive — on film it does not look like it is blazing — but again the quality of their opponents also has super-fast players.”

As for statistics in Section 2AAAA, both team’s offenses have mirror images.

Willmar is averaging 12.9 points per game while the Eagles are at 15.8 points per game.

The Cardinals’ defense is allowing 29.4 points a game, while New Ulm is permitting 24.8 points per game.

Lieser said that Willmar’s size and speed is something that the Eagles need to overcome.

“We are going to have to be creative a little bit in the run game,” he said. “We are trying to come up with a game plan and try and get our best players the ball a little bit. We may also have some changes in how we attack — we are looking at ways of how to exploit their size and speed and use that in some way against them if we can.”