PENNCREST votes on sports consolidation
· Yahoo Sports
HAYFIELD TOWNSHIP — PENNCREST School Board voted on Monday to consolidate the boys wrestling teams at Cambridge Springs and Maplewood junior-senior high schools while opting against consolidation of the Maplewood girls soccer team. The votes came at a special meeting in front of a crowd of about 50 people in the Saegertown Junior-Senior High auditorium.
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While the consolidation proposals were driven by safety concerns due to dwindling participation numbers, the district is optimistic about finding additional students willing to embrace another athletic opportunity. Board members also voted to launch a girls flag football team that will draw members from all three district attendance areas and start competition during the 2026-27 school year.
Board members’ unanimous vote to consolidate the boys wrestling teams came despite pleas from wrestlers, their parents and others in the audience. The vote also came with several stipulations that had not been included in the original proposal — namely, that the coaching staff of the consolidated team will include coaches from both Maplewood and Cambridge Springs; that competitions will be divided between the two schools; and, perhaps most importantly, that the district will provide transportation for Cambridge Springs team members to practice at Maplewood during the sport’s winter season.
The consolidated arrangement will be in effect at least two years with a goal of recruiting 13 students at the junior high and senior high level for both schools, so that independent programs could once again be established. The two teams currently have 11 members combined, officials at the meeting said.
“As a Cambridge Springs alum, I don’t want see Cambridge do a co-op, but I do want to see Cambridge come back — and I do think Cambridge can come back, and I heard a few ideas from a couple of speakers,” board member Tim Brown said before the vote. “The problem is having those ideas now — implementing them today, if you do 100 percent implementation, all your ideas today, it’s going to be four or five years before we start to see the impacts of some of these ideas.”
The conditions added to the arrangement did little to assuage close to 20 opponents of the consolidation, who could be heard grumbling about the outcome as they left the meeting following the vote.
Before the vote, the opponents presented a variety of arguments against consolidation, including concerns about transportation; a loss of school identity; and the belief that consolidation, far from creating a larger pool of players to draw from, will result in even fewer Cambridge Springs students participating in wrestling.
Liam Beck, a Cambridge Springs seventh grader, told the board that the discipline, accountability, mental toughness and resilience learned through wrestling extend beyond the mat, but those benefits could be lost in a merger of the two schools’ teams.
“Because of transportation, scheduling conflicts and feeling disconnected from a merged team, when a program leaves our building participation often drops,” said Beck, reading from a prepared statement. “If we remove wrestling from our school, we’re not just removing a sport. We’re removing opportunity, we’re removing tradition, and we’re removing a pathway for students to grow.”
While most of the 13 residents who addressed the board prior to the vote opposed consolidation, Shawn Shetler, the Maplewood wrestling coach, said the plan would help fill the stands and make the resulting team more competitive.
“I know we’re going to hear a lot about, when you co-op, you lose your identity as a school,” he said. “But if we don’t combine this and make the programs stronger, we ain’t going to have a program to have to worry about identity for.”
The board’s discussion of sports team consolidation last week also included a proposal to combine the Maplewood girls soccer team with the Cambridge Springs team, which already includes players from Saegertown. The prospect ignited a scene similar to the one before this week’s meeting: four team members and several boosters and parents addressed the board, making similar arguments to the ones heard from Cambridge Springs wrestling supporters.
But in contrast to boys wrestling, board members ultimately voted unanimously to keep the Maplewood girls soccer team independent. A major factor in the contrasting outcomes was successful recruiting: Updated numbers announced Monday indicated that 18 or 19 students have committed to play for the Maplewood girls soccer team in the fall with another three or four possible. The tentative figure is well above the starting roster of 13 at the beginning of last season. A starting lineup in soccer consists of 11 players. The board’s approval also set 16 as the minimum roster number for keeping the Maplewood team independent in the future.
Board members also unanimously approved a plan to launch a girls flag football team in the spring of 2027, a year later than previously proposed. Erica Howick, the Saegertown Junior-Senior high principal who is leading the effort to form the team, said the additional year will allow more time to establish a solid foundation for the sport. The first year of the program will be funded by the Pittsburgh Steelers, according to board President Randy Styborski, and the district would not be committed beyond the first season.
While the board was optimistic that the various moves would conserve athletic opportunities for district students, it was also clear that the pessimism and dissatisfaction expressed by close to two dozen Cambridge Springs boys wrestling supporters made an impression on several board members.
“I know it sucked tonight, I know it did, but you’ve got to be positive about this,” Brown said after the group departed following the consolidation vote. “If you leave here defeated because of a co-op, it’s never going to improve.”
“Not with that attitude,” board member Ryan Benek added.