Over the years at Belfast Central School, sports are the most commonly participated in extracurricular activity. Some students in high school participate in soccer, basketball, softball/baseball, volleyball, and more. The boys teams seem to have many in number; on the other side of things, the girls are low in numbers. In the past two years that I’ve played soccer, we were scarce in numbers. In 2015-16, we were in danger of not having a varsity girls soccer team. Even though we had a small group of girls, we beat Romulus, Prattsburgh, Whitesville, and went all the way to sectionals and lost, and that’s not bad for a young team. This year in soccer again, we were low in numbers. We had girls that haven’t even played soccer for a long time or at all and we pulled modified players up to have more people.The girls basketball team was low in numbers as well. My 9th grade year, there weren’t enough girls to play JV so I had to play a couple games up on varsity, which wasn’t really fun because I didn’t get a lot of playing time, and again this year, there wasn’t a JV team. There are thirty-seven girls in high school all together, and only twenty-one of them, fifty-seven percent, play sports such as soccer, volleyball, basketball, and cheerleading. This year there wasn’t a softball team because of the low numbers: eight girls signed up so there wasn’t enough to field a team. We lost two girls in soccer due to injuries, and then one from basketball, which jeopardized girls playing. There are fifty boys in high school, and only twenty-five play sports, which means only fifty percent of boys in high school, but more boys than girls play multiple sports.

I don’t know why girls don’t want to play high school sports as much? I would be bored every day after school if I didn’t play sports.  In sports, you have fun and bond with the girls and create memories. How can you do that when girls don’t even attempt the sport? I understand if their parents don’t let them play, but if they have the choice, then why wouldn’t they try a team? I’m hoping my senior year in 2018 there are enough girls to have a team for soccer. For basketball, I’m not worried because they need at eight girls to play with only five girls playing at a time. Playing in sports is one of the most fun things that I have done in my high school career. I got to bond with people that I would have never even known well if I didn’t play sports. Making memories is always great: bus rides are fun and we do pop can drives and breakfast at Ace’s Country Cupboard. And if girls saw how much fun it actually is, they might play. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of hard work as well, but it can be really fun overall.

So, girls who don’t play a sport, try something new and join a sports team. If you don’t like it, then don’t do it next year, but try something new. You might not be good at soccer, basketball, volleyball, or softball at first, but practice makes perfect, and once you start getting good, then you’ll enjoy it more and have more fun with the sport and your teammates.