Fall sports participation changed slightly during pandemic
Participation rates from fall sports in 2019 to 2020 didn’t show much change overall. Some sports went up slightly; others went down slightly.
Despite the pandemic, some sports saw participation numbers increase during the fall season.
In the past there were eight fall sports students were able to choose from. These sports consisted of golf, football, cross country, boys soccer, girls volleyball, girls tennis, cheerleading, poms, and girls swimming/diving.
In 2019 the participation number for all of these sports was a total of 570 athletes. Many of those athletes were in football, girls volleyball, and boys soccer.
With COVID-19 in effect, only golf, cross country, tennis, and swimming & diving were able to have their seasons in the fall this school year. With only these sports in account, participation numbers did increase in these four sports from 191 athletes to 197.
According to the MCHS athletic department, cross country had one of the highest number of athletes in 2019 with 111 runners. The team had 90 runners this year.
“Due to the lack of people we were able to become closer as a team which helped make the season a little bit more normal,” Olivia Adams, senior cross country runner, said.
One of the most popular sports at MCHS was not able to play this fall season, and that sport was football. With there being a whopping 170 players combined on last year’s teams, many students were disappointed they had to wait until the spring to play.
“It makes me upset because I was unable to experience a senior season with the guys I’ve been playing with since grade school,” Mason Spivey, senior varsity football player, said.
On the other hand, some sports did find they had an increase in numbers this year. For example boy’s golf was one of the sports that had an increase in athletes.
“I noticed more people at golf because they could not do their main sport this year,” Kevin Phillips, senior golfer, said.
Participation numbers in girl’s tennis also increased.
“Tennis wasn’t that different from past seasons, and it made me forget about what was happening, I think there were more players that joined this year to get out of the house more because of everything going on,” Mariah Duarte, senior tennis player, said.
