Friday, March 29, 2024

School Board still mulling over the decision to add middle school soccer

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The issue of middle school soccer is again on the docket of the Cascade School Board. As it stands, no other school in the 1A Caribou Trail League has middle school soccer. It is mainly the province of the bigger school districts like Wenatchee and Eastmont.
Still, the popularity of youth soccer in Leavenworth is huge and the success of the high school boys and girls teams is remarkable. Yet, there is a gap for these soccer playing kids, namely middle school.
Aaron Simon, the president of the Leavenworth Soccer Club, continued to press the school board on the issue at the June 11 meeting. Simon said the middle school soccer discussion started in May of 2016 with Athletic Director Dom Coffin and has continued since then.
“One of the things we want to make school board aware of is the need we feel for middle school soccer and make sure this need is being looked at. I went back with seven years worth of data, noting how many boys and girls we have that would be playing middle school soccer,” Simon said. “Basically, we’re around 32 for boys each year and 36 for girls. What we’re talking about is a potential sports team of 65 kids. In the last seven years, we’ve had over 50 kids in the rec program at the age right before middle school.”
In the last seven years, Simon said they’ve never had below 60 kids. What they are finding, he said, is that when kids reach middle school age, they stop playing soccer, because is no middle school program.
Wenatchee has three middle school teams, Eastmont has two, Moses Lake has three and Quincy has one.
“What happens is kids want to play for their school. They want to be Kodiaks. They don’t play rec anymore. The reason the Leavenworth kids don’t play in U15 is there are no teams to play,” Simon said. “We could be part of this Northcentral Washington Middle School League. Right now, there are nine teams, so they would like to have an even number. We have this middle school gap.”
The 13-year olds in the LSC, who have been playing since age five, won’t play for another 22 months until high school, Simon said.
“They will have almost two years without any soccer or play on club teams, which are very expensive. We just want to make sure you understand the need,” he said. “We know, after school, extracurricular activities keep students engaged in school. With the Latino group, especially boys, if we had a sport for them to play, we would keep them engaged in school.”
Cascade Superintendent Bill Motsenbocker asked about the number of kids who play on club teams. Simon said he surveyed about 200 kids and almost all said they would play middle school ball. Most kids do not play on club teams because it very expensive.
Simon said they are so many players, there might be A an B teams. Coffin explained there are not A and B teams, but rather seventh and eight grade teams. If the 32 boys and 36 girls are split into seventh and eighth grade teams, there would be 16 on each team for boys and 18 on each team for girls, which is just right for 11-man starting squad with a bench, Simon said.
“I know there’s issues in other communities where the good soccer players go play club and rest play on the school teams. If in another community, that’s not how it works, they just get annihilated. That happens when you have club and school together. It seems like it’s one or the other. I don’t know that is a good situation, either you get stomped or you stomp,” Motsenbocker said.
Dr. Kelly Gillespie, LSC coach and player coordinator, said of the number of club teams in Wenatchee, those kids also go play for their middle schools. The parity has been good.
“Just because they play on a club doesn’t mean they are an amazing player. A lot of times, they have money to play club. There are better kids who can’t play club. This is an opportunity for them to play together,” Gillespie said. “The club teams generally play on weekends, the school teams mid-week.”
Simon said it cost around $2,000 per year to play club soccer. Board member Carrie Sorensen said, under than model, the club teams are not taking the best players, just the players with the money to do it. Gillespie said the LSC is a lot cheaper because they want kids to play.
“It’s called the pay-to-play system. It’s a problem for U.S. Soccer. We’re not in the World Cup this year. This pay-to-play system people are looking at. You have affluent families whose kids are playing soccer. We’re doing it for around $200 a season. It’s all volunteer,” Simon said.
Gillespie said the LSC grassroots system is bucking the pay-to-play system.
“We’ve had some go on to play at the highest level of competitive soccer in the state, which is cool. Glenn (Stefanko, CHS girls coach) made a great point. He had some fantastic coaches come over and they are coaching our girls as well,” Gillespie said. “He (the visiting coach) thought it was amazing. All these girls happy to be here. They are excited. In Bellevue, there are only three there because they want to be there. It’s fun to see the passion.”
Board President Brenda Biebesheimer asked if mixing all the different skill levels would be an issue with middle school soccer.
“They do it at the high school level. Every year, we have a top four team, but he still trains girls who may have come out for the first time. You can do that at the middle school too,” Gillespie said.
Former Icicle River Middle School Principal Kenny Renner-Singer was worried about losing the no-cut policy.
“One of the ethics we’ve always tried at Cascade is we have a zero-cut policy, especially at middle school. What you see with club, you rapidly go into cuts. What’s nice about next year, if my daughter wants to play basketball and she stinks, she’s on B-team,” Renner-Singer said. “In the past, if we had the numbers, there were be a C-team. It looks like the league only has one team so, if you have 40 kids turning out, you might have to look at the cut policy. It would be a shame to go down that road.”
Motsenbocker said in the school district, they want to offer what kids want. He said they’ve answered questions about the league, but he wondered about transportation and field capacity.
“We don’t want to have a field capacity where at the end of the season, the field looks like hamburger. That’s why we talked about having an audit year so we can see what happens,” Motsenbocker said. “We have this new field on Titus and Pine. We think it will be good and will work, but if we add two more teams, I don’t where we would be with that.”
Coffin said there would be high school and middle school football on the fields, plus middle school soccer for boys and girls.
“The big schools are the ones that have it because they have a lot of field space. That’s what is slowing us down,” Coffin said. “The spring is the toughest because we have six high school sports and two middle school sports, so there were some games to work around. We had charter buses for a few. Cashmere drove us around for trips. That is the other big issue.”
Sorensen asked Coffin if he felt middle school soccer was feasible. Coffin said he didn’t know if it was feasible, but it was something the kids want to do. He felt the success of the high school teams has really increased the excitement.
Board member Trey Ising expressed concerns about the need for lights at the fall soccer games, since there would be two games going on.
“We’ve made due even with the crunch on field space with six club teams that use our fields for home games. Once the middle school program happens, who knows how much those club teams would happen,” Gillespie said.
Motsenbocker said Coffin will get together with Facilities Manager, Theresa Disher, to make a decision.
“From the district’s point of view, we would really like to go through a year to audit what we have going,” Motsenbocker said. “If we do it, we want to do it really well. Our other soccer teams are very successful. We want to be able to do the same. Dom and Theresa will have to make that decision before the end of the month.”
Transportation Director Tim Bentz said if they were able to take the softball and volleyball teams on the same days as soccer, he believes it could happen.
“It’s always tight for us. I didn’t see anything insurmountable based on those days,” Bentz said.
Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.

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