Eagles look to build on improved season
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NEW ULM -- New Ulm Eagles head football coach Derek Lieser said that his team left some wins on the field this season after the Eagles season came to a close with a 35-0 loss to Hutchinson in a Section 2AAAA playoff game Tuesday.
"But when I look through the lens as a head coach and you take a step back and ask, 'What is your mission as a program?' And it is to teach young men life lessons through the game of football," Lieser said as his team ended with a 4-5 record. "If you add that, it was a really successful year and our team took steps forward in building leaders and a player-led culture. So it depends on what lens you want to look through, but this season was some of the most fun I have had coaching in my decade-plus of coaching high school football.
"I have been on teams that have played in section finals and have played in state quarterfinal games, but this is some of the most fun I have had coaching because we had really solid kids and they made coming to practice the best parts of my day."
The Eagles will return a lot of players next season, especially at the skill positions.
"Our wingback and quarterbacks are juniors, as is our starting tailback, and three of our top receivers are back, but we do graduate a lot of up front," Lieser said. "And we have some sophomores that we are excited about. Owen Drill had a lot of success as a defensive back and then had to take over at quarterback when Owen Castleman got hurt. Doug Henderson and Brock Nachreiner are two sophomores who are back next season. And we have almost 20 current juniors back next year with a lot of talent. But we do have to recruit and find more bodies."
Lieser said that the Eagles had between 60-65 players out this season and the numbers are getting larger.
"Our eighth-grade class had 25 players out," he said.
New Ulm is also one of the smallest Class AAAA schools in the section.
"We certainly would love to go back down to AAA, because that is where we would continue to have success and be able to compete," Lieser said. "It is challenging to go against the AAAA schools that we do see. To be able to do that for eight weeks straight, we would struggle with that. In the 2AAA section that we would normally be in we compete well against those schools. But that is out of our control."
And the New Ulm High School is in the unique bubble of being the only city in Minnesota with a population of 14,000 or less and have three competitive high schools.
"We are not a big suburb, but yet we have multi-schools in our community. And it is fantastic that the kids in this town have the choices between three schools, but then it makes it challenging when we have to go against a Marshall or Hutchinson which does not have to share their athletes between three schools. So the fact that we can still get 65 kids out is great. It is a challenge that I do not know if any other AAAA school has to deal with. It is not an excuse but it is a reality of our situation."