A Conversation with the Coaches

With the winter sports starting, this seemed like a good time to touch base with the head coaches of wrestling and boys and girls basketball.

Wrestling

Damon Loyd, starting his second year as head coach, is looking forward to the 2024-2025 season. He has decent numbers for the upcoming season. It’s not where he wants to be, but going from seven to 11 is really good. The freshman class is large with five wrestlers.

This year’s squad will be led by the three seniors with 3-time state qualifier Gage Burden along with Gavin Menke-Bailey and Corbin Jacobs-Jewell. Both are making some great gains from last year and have hopes to take that final step to the state tournament at the Well in their final season as a Tiger. Sophomore Kane Foreseen looks to make some noise coming off a great freshman season just a couple points shy of qualifying for the Well last year.

The high school home tournament, the Jeremy Fulk Invitational, will kick the season off on Saturday, Dec. 7. Wrestling starts at 9 a.m. The only home dual is also Senior night on Dec. 12 at 6 p.m. at Charles Lorber Gymnasium.

The JH have 11 out as well, with nine of them being 7th graders. The Tiger Cub has somewhere in the 40s for numbers. The JH youth tournament is Dec. 8 at Charles Lorber Gym as well. Wrestling will start around 9 a.m.

Loyd said, “I would like to thank all the coaches, booster members, school administration, and the Journal for following and reporting results. I would like to also thank the public for all their support … for the funding for all the work in the last year for room renovations, and for the support of the coaches and the direction we are taking the program in this rebuilding process. They say it takes a village, well we live in one of the best, New London. Go Tigers!!”

Loyd’s assistant coach is Jake Lerdal. The JH coach is Taylor Zippe, and the Tiger Cub youth program is coached by Jarin Swailes, Dustin Bliven, and Drew Kelly.

Girls Basketball

Numbers for the girls have been low for a while. First-year Head Coach Austin Burns, along with Assistant Coach Morgan Christner Davis, have 10 girls out for the 2024-2025 season. They are seniors: Morgan Jones, Mylee Miller, and Hailey Volner; juniors: Megan Lee and Molly Proost; sophomores: Shay Wilka and Maddie Nelson; and freshmen: Maison Nelson, Ruby Myers, and Halee Miller.

Their new coach is hoping to cultivate enjoyment of the sport for the girls. He really wants the girls to enjoy playing the game, playing with each other, and growing along the way. He said, “We are focused on values in the context of how we play the game. Playing the right way, believing in themselves, competing and enjoying playing are all focused values.”

Burns summed up his feelings on the season ahead, “I am really excited to be coaching these girls and I can't wait to see how much they learn and grow this season.”

Good luck ladies!

Boys Basketball

The Dean of coaches at NLHS now that Mark Chiri and Brad Helmerson have retired has to be boys basketball coach Bryant Porter who is entering his 13th season. This year continues the rebuilding year that started after the 2022-2023 team went to the state tournament, Porter’s second trip in his tenure as head coach. This year he will be joined by Kaleb Haeffner in the assistant coach position.

He says about the team, “We have a lot of youth this year both in experience and varsity playing time. The thing I like about this team and the guys we have is they are receptive to learning the new concepts and are not short on ambition. As a coach I can work with those traits.”

He continued, “Starting the season with two returning starters from last year’s team and the possibility of our leading scorer not being available until later this year, things are going to be up and down. One thing is this, these guys will compete every night. I always tell my guys you can’t win without competing first and hopefully that sticks with them.” Good luck to Coach Porter and his team!

The Tigers, both boys and girls, will play Dec. 3 at West Burlington. Hope to see you there!