Despite a season-ending 49-14 playoff loss to Jordan Tuesday night in Section 2AAAA, New Ulm High School head football coach Eric Kauffmann said that his team did a lot of good things that they can build on for next season.

Last season, the Eagles were 0-9 and scored just 41 total points in the nine games.

This year, New Ulm went 3-6 and saw the offense produce 146 points.

The Eagles also saw junior running back Cole Ranweiler finish the year with 1,283 yards and 12 touchdowns.

“We talked about that with the players after the game Tuesday,” Kauffmann said. “And we will talk with them more in the next week or so. One of the big things that we talked about was changing the attitude about the way we do things and what this program is capable of doing. Really we could have been winless this year or we could have had five wins. But we made some good strides this year with our attitude and the culture change we want to have happen up here at New Ulm High School. I am never happy with the loss but we are making changes — we have the right people in place to keep going with that — and we are making other changes.”

Kauffmann said that having Ranweiler back next season is something that his team can build around.

“But he can’t do that without an offensive line and I do think that we have some good young linemen coming up but how well they handle that step from JV to varsity is a big question mark,” Kauffmann said. “Hopefully they work hard in the off-season and get stronger.”

He is also searching for a quarterback to take over for senior Nolan Drill.

CHARGERS LOSE KEY PLAYERS: Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s 34-8 loss to Waterville-Elysian-Morristown Tuesday saw the end of some key players for the Chargers.

“Mason Cox, Colton Collum, Jace Marotz, Carlos Ramirez — they have put a lot of time and effort into football,” Chargers head coach Jim Buboltz said. “But yet we have a big JV group coming back as far as a big group of linemen. We also have a lot of younger wide receivers who are hungry to get back out there — Luke Thompson, Cole Thompson, Alexis Ramirez. Those guys could be leaders for us next year.”

Buboltz said that next year’s squad will have more size than this year

“Our JV group is one that may push people instead of running around people,” he said. “We will see if that is the kind of offense that we need to run with or if we need to be more north and south. We need to get off to a better start than we did this year (going 0-4 in first four games). We have seen slow starts for the last couple of seasons where we start playing our best football towards the end of the season. We need to play better at the start of the season so we do not put ourselves in a tough situation at the end of the season.”

INJURIES LIMIT GREYHOUNDS: There are not many high school teams that have to use three quarterbacks in one season like New Ulm Cathedral did this year.

“He is the central guy in the huddle and on the offense,” Cathedral head coach Denny Lux said. “That guy has a lot of leadership roles that he plays — win or lose — and when you keep changing those faces of that person I think that it creates a little bit of uneasiness as far as that continuity.”

Lux will have a more veteran team next year.

“Next year’s team returns Sam Knowles at quarterback [after missing this season because of ACL surgery] and eight starters so they can settle in and be more confident and more routine in what they are doing.”

Cathedral also brings back Jon Adema, Eric Furth, Luke Gieseke and Noah Wilmes.

“That is a good start for next year’s team,” Lux said. “Our seniors this season gave us a chance, they kept us competitive all year. We played good football teams pretty much every Friday night.”