New London Aims to Reload, Not Rebuild in McSorley’s Fourth Year

By: Nathan Bloechl — sports@kilj.com

(Photo Courtesy: Southeast Iowa Sports Union)

After graduating as much as talent as anybody in the state last year, the New London football team still made waves.

And as head coach Mark McSorley embarks on his fourth season with the Tigers, the expectations remain the same: dominate the district and make the playoffs.

Under McSorley’s watch, New London has morphed into an 8-man power winning the 2018 State Championship, a season where he was named the 8-man Coach of the Year — that result sandwiched in between playoff berths in 2017 and 2019.

After finishing last season 6-3, suffering a first round playoff loss to eventual 8-man State Champion Don Bosco, New London’s group will have a different look this year after graduating 16 seniors from last years team.

They do return quarterbacks Blaise Porter, Dom Lopez and Ethan Streeter, DB Ryan Richey, RB Caydin Wahls, DE Boden Pickle, OLB Currey Jacobs and DL Carter Allen.

Their big loss will be replacing the production of running back Shea Summerfield, who finished 3rd in the state last year with 34 rushing touchdowns and over 2,000 yards rushing.

And while a player like Summerfield is truly irreplaceable, McSorely believes his team first approach this year will help mitigate the loss of their star tailback.

We have a good “team” atmosphere with a few of our players accepting new roles in different positions” head coach Mark McSorley told KILJ.

We have been working on some new concepts offensively and the players are adapting and learning quickly.”

And like every team playing right now, they’re subject to the coronavirus, but McSorely believes the Tigers are doing what they can to mitigate risk in 2020.

We’ve done a lot to have a safe and healthy return to school [and practice], hopefully we can stay that way — because our football team has a real chance to to be competitors for a district title this year.”

New London will open their truncated season on August 28th at Moravia.

Here’s their full schedule:

8/28: at Moravia

9/4: WACO

9/11: Montezuma

9/18: at Lone Tree

9/25: Winfield-Mount Union

10/9: at Twin Cedars