New London-Spicer is Class AAA football champions

The Wildcats capped a 14-0 season with a 28-21 win over Glencoe-Silver Lake in the Prep Bowl on Saturday afternoon.

Just off of the top of my head, NL-S now has won state championships in Cross Country, Girls Basketball, Boys Basketball, and now Football. They've also had girls golf, boys tennis, girls tennis, and volleyball teams advance to the state tournament.

Dan Essler, Brooten High School graduate in 1982, is the head coach of the Wildcats. He was a member of the 1981 Brooten Buccaneers team that went 6-3 (4-3 Prairie), one of the best seasons in football for BHS. The head coach that year was current B-B-E athletic director Jerry Lindstrom. In Essler's first season as head coach at NL-S, his team went 1-8 (2002).

Last year they went 10-3 overall and lost to DeLasalle in the Class AAA semi-finals.

Here's their season records beginning in 2004: 5-4, 3-6, 8-3, 6-4, 10-3, 14-0. They are 13-3 in the playoffs since 2006, when they finished as Section 6AAA runners-up.

A look to the past:
In 1989, B-B-E and NL-S both lost their first 7 games of the season. They met for the final regular season game in New London, a game aptly called the "Toilet Bowl" as the winner could brag that they beat a winless team. NL-S ended up bringing up the bottom of the West Central Conference South standings that year. They were shutout in an embarrassing loss to B-B-E, 27-0. The next week's Belgrade Observer had Bob Beliveau quoted as saying "This is a step in the right direction for our football program." B-B-E went on to post 0-8 or 0-9 seasons in seven of the next 15 seasons up through 2004. NL-S played in two section finals in that same period (the old Section 6A and then 6AAA) and then made the Section 6AAA final in 2006. So we can see which football program made a step in the right direction after 1989.

Keep in mind, since the early 2000's, NL-S has had 2X the amount of students than B-B-E has.