WAITSBURG – At their regular meeting last week, the Waitsburg School District approved an agreement to combine high school baseball and softball programs with Prescott High School for the 2016 spring season.

Both Waitsburg and Prescott school districts are nailing down their plans for sports offerings, now that the WP sports combine has been dissolved for the 2015-16 school year. Waitsburg Superintendent Carol Clarke, filling in for Athletic Advisor Stephanie Wooderchak, provided the board with a sports update last week, and asked if they would like to combine with Prescott for softball and baseball next year. The board agreed.

As it stands, Waitsburg High School will offer football, volleyball and cross-country in the fall, basketball in the winter and track & field in the spring. Prescott School District Superintendent Brett Cox confirmed that Prescott High plans to offer volleyball and soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter and softball and baseball in the spring. Prescott plans to co-op with Waitsburg for football and track & field. Besides baseball and softball, Waitsburg has also been invited to co-op for soccer. Cox said Prescott has not determined spring sport offerings for middle school at this time.

Clarke shared that spring sports are underway, and both WP baseball and softball teams were fielded easily with a good representation of students from both school districts. She said track participants number in the 40’s with some representation from Prescott and Jubilee, but the majority from Waitsburg.

Clarke said Prescott asked for a response regarding baseball and softball now so they can determine whether or not to bring up their eighth grade next year. She said that, with the number of athletes interested, Prescott believes it would be a fair exchange of resources between combining for football hosted by Waitsburg and baseball/softball hosted in Prescott.

“We know that football is a way more expensive sport, but they would be sending way fewer people over than we, presumably, would be sending for baseball and softball,” Clarke said. Fall football and volleyball schedules for Waitsburg are complete.

Clarke said Prescott suggests no cost-sharing, with each school responsible for their own program. She also said that Prescott had indicated they would not transport football athletes (due to low numbers) but if they had five track & field athletes, they would transport them to Waitsburg.

“I support [combining baseball and softball] just based on our numbers. If we don’t, I don’t believe we’ll have enough participation to have this program,” said school board chairman and advisory committee member Ross Hamann. Hamann said that 15 students had turned out for middle school baseball; eight from Prescott and seven from Waitsburg. Twelve turned out for middle school softball, split evenly between both districts. “Together they have a team. Apart they don’t. I, for one, want to try to keep these programs alive,” said Hamann.

School and advisory board member Greg Zuger commented that Waitsburg would not have a junior high baseball team because Prescott plans to offer middle school soccer in the spring instead. Christy House suggested that Waitsburg entertain the idea of working with Dayton for middle school baseball and noted that several sixth grade boys played with Dayton last year.

“We’re going to have to get creative,” said Hamann.