La Salle

By RICK KAUFFMAN

rkauffman@timesherald.com

SPRINGFIELD — Call last season a “down year,” because the Explorers are again setting their sights on some prestigious hardware, with the determination to boot.

This year’s Explorers are focused on the little things, and this case, the writing is on the wall:

Every step, every rep, every drill, every play and every game is critical.

“We’re trying to get them to understand that there’s nothing that isn’t important,” said Explorers’ coach Drew Gordon. “We’re trying to get them focused on doing the right stuff.”

Back with the Vanderbilt-bound Kyle Shurmur under center, La Salle College High School was quick to rebound from a loss to St. Joseph’s Prep in the Philadelphia Catholic League championship. Now with experience in their favor, some returning key starters aim to fix the woes of the year before.

“Last year I feel like we were too content, we were too satisfied with where we were,” Shurmur said. “We’re supposed to be hungry for more, the bigger goal, and I feel like losing last year really struck a lot of players, especially this year’s seniors, and we’re hungry this year.”

Coach Gordon put it simply: “We lost to a better team.” But, that won’t be the excuse this season. He sees a fit group of young men dead-set on regaining the PCL hubcap, whereas last season he fielded team that had both lost leadership-quality players as well as A-plus playmakers from the year before.

“The biggest loss was their leadership, they were good, but they really got it,” Gordon said.

The season was a work in progress, at least to the standards at La salle, a PCL finals berth notwithstanding, and they fell short of expectations.

“Probably the most time that is wasted in high school football is guys not knowing their assignment — guys go the wrong way, block the wrong guy, don’t line up right — it wastes so much time correcting that,” Gordon said. “We went through that last year and we’re not doing that now.”

Shurmur will look to be the leader he showed glimpses of last year — he had the physical attributes and the wherewith all, but it was an awkward transition to join the team without much history because he and the players he was leading.

Starting the year with just one running back who carried much of the weight, Jordan Meachum, a junior, but by the fourth game Nick Rinella reared his head and made an immediate impact.

“There were games last year where we just ended up running the ball most of the game, it had nothing to do with Kyle, we just said ‘it’s there, let’s take it,’” Gordon said. “And that’s how we found out about Rinella against O’Hara.”

With Jimmy Herron at wide receiver and Charlie Hemcher at tight end, Shurmur should have an abundance of targets to find.

“Right away all of the seniors got together and said ‘we’ve got to get this title back,’” Shurmur said. “We have the players to do it, we have good guys where we can build up to that point, we just got to keep working toward it.”

Defensively, the team aims to tip the scale even more in their favorite. Ryan Brady, strong safety, sees a new attitude in the back field.

“I think our mentality has changed a little bit on defense,” Brady said. “We’re trying to be a downhill team now.”

The first half of the season will be a true test for the Explorers when they’ll face North Penn, Bergen, DeMatha, Malvern, McDonogh, Wood, Prep and the rest of the PCL schedule.

“We could be 5-and-4 or 3-and-6 at the end of the year and not have played badly with that schedule,” Gordon said.

But, as is the way for all La Salle athletics, the goal is always to win.

“Our whole intent is to be ready for the playoffs,” he added.