Minnesota Valley Lutheran quarterback Kaden Peterson’s seven touchdown passes Friday night in a 54-16 win over LeSueur-Henderson shattered the previous school record of four in a game.

That record was held by three previous MVL quarterbacks in John Enter, Matt Munsen and A.J. Buboltz.

Munsen still holds the MVL single-game passing yardage record with 403.

When you talk to Chargers head coach Jim Buboltz, he says that the junior quarterback has done the job that the coaches want him to do.

“He keeps things simple and not trying to do to much,” Buboltz said. “He was probably pressing a little bit last year, but when he is able to that he can put the ball where it needs to be.”

And at times on the football field, Peterson can remind you of a kid in a candy store. There are so many choices for him that at times it is hard to decide.

“I say at times that he has a lot of toys,” Buboltz said about receivers Ben Pearson, Kyler Flunker, Brennan Bendix and Bradyn Kube. “Each one of those four guys — and people need to remember that Will Kaesermann will be coming back soon — they all can run great patterns and they all feel like they can get the ball.”

And the Chargers offense can hit you fast. Friday, the first two MVL scoring drives took 41 seconds and 23 seconds, respectively.

“We want to be ready to go right from the opening kickoff and set the tone of the game,” Buboltz said.

And the Chargers can also ground and pound.

“Last week, Ben Price ran for 142 yards — we have a good line and I am proud of what our young offensive line is doing with just one senior.”

While MVL has scored 111 points in three games, the Chargers’ defense has allowed 22, with 16 of them cosmetic points late in the game Friday.

“Our first-team defense has not given up a point this season,” Buboltz said. “And they have taken a lot of pride in that. Our coaching staff is seeing a group of kids taking it all in. They are so coachable and they want each other to do well.”

And there may be more bad news for opposing teams,

“Historically, we are a second-half team, so we want to see if that can continue this season.”

PENALTIES HURT GREYHOUNDS

On Friday night, three penalties brought back three New Ulm Cathedral touchdowns in a 30-22 loss to Red Rock Central.

“Some of those penalties are just from habits that the guys got into in practice with their holding,” Cathedral head coach Denny Lux said. “We need to eliminate those negative things that are happening in practice because they showed up in that game. Any kind of mistakes — whether it was turnovers or penalties was going to make the difference.”

Lux said that defensively after the first Falcons scoring drive, the Greyhounds defense settled in.

“After the game we had them down for 74 yards rushing,” he said. “Then it was a matter of our pass defense taking over and we just did not complete the job there. We gave them some fairly easy scores that were tough to bounce back from.

“But we had ourselves in a position to tie the game at the end, but it did not work out for us.”

While Lux thought it was not a turning point, when RRC scored on its opening drive of the game it took the Greyhounds about a quarter to get back into the game mentally.

“That is a big part of high school football,” Lux said. “You have to have a clear mind and be able to react as quick as you can. We got ourselves in a position to score late in the fourth quarter, but it did not work out.”

TURNOVERS TURN UP FOR EAGLES

New Ulm High School head football coach Derek Lieser said following his team’s 35-25 loss to Tri-City United that he was proud of the effort but disappointed in his team’s execution.

“We had big list of miscues on our own end,” Lieser said. “All it takes is one player not doing their job and bad things happen.”

Turnovers — which the Eagles did not have in their first two games — materialized Friday.

“In the first half, we had a bad snap that led to a touchdown for them,” Lieser said. “Then we had a pick-six, so it went from being a 7-7 game to being down 21-13 at the half. Then we had a punt-return touchdown called back on a block in the back where we blocked a guy who had no chance of making a play.

“Then we had two more interceptions — a bad exchange on a fourth-and-one. The list of mistakes on our end was unfortunate because we had opportunities where we could have been on the other side of the scoreboard.”

Lieser said the team wasn’t as efficient as they were in the first two weeks.

“We went from zero turnovers in two games and being very efficient to the other end of shooting ourselves in the foot too many times,” he said. “That eventually comes back to bite you.”

New Ulm running back Ian Brudelie did play but was limited, Lieser said, while starting running back Ty Frederick did not play. Quarterback Ayden Jensen was playing with a toe injury and was limited in practice during the week.

“We did lose Ethan Lieb to a hip-pointer in the second quarter and did not play the rest of the game,” Lieser said. “He is our second captain and he does our punting and kicking and a two-way player. We had to battle some adversity.”