By Jeanne Sager
ROSCOE — March 16, 2004 – Kids in Roscoe are in for a pretty quiet spring.
The district will not be able to field varsity or modified baseball teams this year.
And the crack of a bat on a softball will be absent from the usual sounds of spring in the hamlet.
According to Roscoe Central School Athletic Director Fred Ahart, just 20 boys in grades seven through 12 signed up for baseball this year.
With a minimum of nine kids on the diamond at a time, that’s just not enough for three separate teams.
Ahart has been forced to tell the two seniors who signed up that they won’t be able to play.
However, the district will provide the boys with a JV team, allowing a few juniors to play with the younger players and bumping some of the seventh and eighth graders up a notch. Scott Haberli, who coached the Blue Devils’ varsity squad in 2003, will coach the JV team.
Still, some of the youngest players will have to be cut because they won’t be eligible for the JV level.
As for softball, just 12 girls in grades seven through 12 scribbled their names across a sign-up sheet.
“That’s certainly not enough to field a team at any level,” Ahart said.
This will be the second year that the district cannot give the girls an option to baseball during the spring season, although Roscoe girls have the option to run track as part of the Tri-Valley team.
The district is expected to field varsity boys’ and girls’ golf teams this spring.