File photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm Cathedral’s Alex Portner (12) looks for running room during a Section 2, Nine-Man Football semifinals game against Cedar Mountain on Oct. 26 at Cedar Mountain High School.

NEW ULM — When New Ulm Cathedral and Renville County West meet for the Section 2, Nine-Man Football Championship Friday at 7 p.m. at Lakeview High School in Cottonwood, both teams will come in with very similar statistics.

In fact, they are a near mirror image of each other.

Both teams are 7-3.

Renville County is scoring an average of 35.8 points a game while Cathedral is averaging 34.1

The Jaguars’ defense is holding teams to 16 points a game while the Greyhounds defense allows just 15 points a game.

And in the state QRF rankings of both teams, New Ulm Cathedral is ranked 21st, with Renville County 22nd.

“They have a pretty solid history of football and they have a quarterback that runs the ball well — he is a good thrower — but he is definitely a threat to run with the ball,” Cathedral head football coach Denny Lux said. “That poses some issues for our defense. And offensively, they do run about five different sets, so we need to find some keys out of each one of those sets.”

Defensively, Lux said the Jaguars look like a team that is going to make the offense drive the ball a long ways.

“They do not give up the big play,” Lux said. “Their secondary is positioned not to give up the big play. If you are going to move the ball against them, it is going to take a lot of downs.”

Lux said the Jaguars’ backs have good speed and also have good size.

“But speed-wise, we match up real well,” Lux said. “And at this point of the season, we have seen a lot of teams and individuals, so it is just a matter of doing the things that got to where you are now and keeping your focus.”

Lux thinks it will be important in their run game to establish the whole field.

“We have done pretty good over the course of the year with that but we felt coming out of the Cedar Mountain game that we left a few yards out there at different spots,” he said. “So we need to do a better job of attacking the whole field.”

Lux said that defensive coordinator Jesse Nosbush has a defense that allows the Greyhounds to adjust to what the Jaguars are doing offensively.

“They run some option, running some veer, they run motion, and coach Nosbush is pretty confident that we can adjust to them,” Lux said “And keep all of the edges and all of the defensive spots solid.”

Lux said the key for the Greyhounds Thursday will be keeping the focus on the sideline.

“We did a super job of that in the second half against Cedar Mountain,” he said. “We did not lose any focus and we kept our energy and it paid off in the long run. When you look at our last three games — we had Hills-Beaver Creek, Nicollet and then Cedar Mountain — we feel that we are battle-tested. We have the determination to compete.”

RCW head football coach Ryan Hebrink said his team will run the ball more than they air it out.

“When you are looking over our stats over the year, we run the ball,” he said.

RCW is led by quarterback Austin Rice, with Jacob Savig as their leading rusher.

Hebrink said his team has been pretty consistent all season.

“The two games that really got away from us were against some really good football teams in Hills-Beaver Creek [a 44-6 loss] and to Mountain Lake Area [a 52-13 loss] — they kind of took it to us. We also had a tough loss to Cedar Mountain [22-19].”

Hebrink, who is in his 15th year as head coach, said the keys to the game for both teams are the basics.

“You need to protect the football, keeping the ball in your hands,” he said. “As much as you try and get into all of the schemes and looking at everything, it still comes down to protecting the football and tacking well. Good things seem to happen to the team that does that.”