Boothbay Region High School will not play varsity football season because of a lack of experienced players but will instead field a club team, school officials have announced.

The Seahawks began preseason with 30 players on their roster, but only about a dozen were deemed ready for varsity football, Coach Bryan Dionne told the Boothbay Register.

Boothbay entered into a cooperative agreement with Wiscasset High School in an attempt to draw more players into the program, but no Wiscasset students have joined the team. Dionne also said about nine players from last year’s team elected not to play this year.

“We didn’t realize until the fall practices began how inexperienced our squad was,” Dionne said. “When we handed out equipment was the first time I knew those 7-9 players from last year weren’t going to play and no Wiscasset kids were either.”

Boothbay was coming off a 2-6 season. With just 206 students, the school was the smallest in the state to have varsity football, not counting the Stearns/Schenck cooperative team.

Boothbay’s decision leaves Class D South with just eight teams and creates a scheduling problem, as most of the remaining teams are now scheduled to play only six games. Maine Principals’ Association and school officials hope to come up with a solution in the next few days.


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