By NICK BUDD
Hays Post
It’s conference realignment, western Kansas middle school style. At Monday night’s meeting, Hays USD 489 board members unanimously approved moving Hays Middle School athletics to the Middle School Western Athletic Conference, a move that will save the district an estimated $3,184. The league resembles the current Western Athletic Conference that Hays High School is in with Great Bend, Liberal, Dodge City, and Garden City.
The move includes adding soccer to Hays Middle School athletics, but the tennis program will be sacrificed.
“The reason we’re sacrificing tennis is because In the new league, Great Bend is the only school that participates in tennis and, for us to maintain any type of schedule, we’d have to travel east all of the time,” said HMS Athletic Director Bruce Rupp.
The switch includes more than $1,000 in savings in transportation alone.
After hearing budget concerns, an anonymous parent donated $2,500 for the first set of soccer uniforms at Hays Middle School. According to Rupp, the new program will include 22 team members on both the boys and girls teams. Both teams will participate in the spring season and play a maximum of seven regular season games. The top four teams will advance to the post season for an additional two games.
“One thing I like about it being in the spring is that it alleviates the overcrowding in our track program,” Rupp said. “A lot of the kids don’t get a lot of the opportunities to participate in meets because they only take the top three members in each event.”
Arenas said in a normal year “approximately 150 students” participate in the track program.
The new league also will bring changes to the basketball programs at HMS. Currently, both the boys and girls teams play at the same time but, under the new league, girls basketball will take place from mid-October until mid-December, and the boys will play from Christmas break until the end of February.
“One of the things we’re currently really struggling with is the use of facilities,” HMS Principal Craig Pallister said. “This is a solution to some of the struggles our parents are facing with having to wake up and take their kids to practice at 5:30 a.m.”
The change will also lead to a decrease in basketball coaches’ salaries due to shortened schedules, an approximate savings of $8,420.
Board members Lance Bickle and Sarah Rankin were absent.