In this space multiple times, I have praised Wiscasset’s and Boothbay Region schools’ efforts to keep this or that sport going, by making a team and a season by working together, pooling interested student-athletes. For a lot of reasons, sport(s) consolidation or collaboration is not as controversial as school consolidation, nor should it be. One can happen in relativity short order and without a long-range commitment; the other, generally not. 

When school districts merge, unwinding the new entity, or part of it, is, as Wiscasset and Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit went through, a long and involved matter. Sports and sports partnerships either happen each year or do not, like this year for Wiscasset boys varsity soccer as the numbers were not there, from Wiscasset or the peninsula.

Wiscasset has admirably devised ways, as in this case, to still give interested students experience in the sport, to feed those students’ interest, maintain and/or build their skills and help create the possibility of a team next season, if the numbers are there.

If grades were consistently full of students like they once were, inter-district and intra-district partnerships in sports or anything else might not have become the lifeline they sometimes are. And so it follows, fielding a team might not be a challenge if not for the bigger picture, and bigger challenge, of smaller student populations. 

In the meantime, one more round of kudos for, again, working to serve the few students who wanted to play.