Kids from Loreburn and Kenaston have a new place to play next year and some Davidson athletes are getting new teammates.

Seven or eight Kenaston School boys are joining the Davidson Raiders senior boys football team this September and four Loreburn Central School girls are becoming members of the Raiders senior girls volleyball team. This co-op agreement between the schools is the result of a low senior student population at the schools and a desire of the kids to continue playing the sports.

Ryan Johnson, principal of Kenaston School, said the agreement between the schools is for three years, but the co-op may continue beyond that. He said Kenaston has been in a senior boys football co-op with Loreburn since 1999, but due to only having 13 eligible players between the two schools next year and having most of them in either Grade 9 or 10 it was decided that was no longer a safe arrangement.

“The coaches have been talking for quite a while, almost since the end of last season, because we knew it wasn’t looking good for numbers between Loreburn and Kenaston,” said Johnson, noting he and Kenaston teacher John Jamieson would also be coming to Davidson to help coach the team. “We talked to the players a little bit about it and we talked to the coaches throughout the winter and when (it came time) to sign a new three-year agreement with Loreburn in the spring we had another meeting with Loreburn and Kenaston coaches and just came to the conclusion it wasn’t going to be safe and there is just not enough boys to make a team.

“That’s when I contacted (Davidson School principal Jason Low) and asked if he’d be willing to have a co-op with us and he said yes.”

Loreburn Central School principal Jill Long said the co-op affects the girls and their families the most as far as travel to and from Davidson, so the arrangement to join the Raiders for the next three years had a lot to do with initial discussions between the school, students and their parents. She said this was also the case with the senior boys at Loreburn and their decision to form a football co-op with Outlook High School.

“The biggest thing is we want them to have a place to play,” said Long. “Right now it’s pretty tough to have a football team with seven players or a volleyball team with four players, so the biggest thing for them is being able to play the sport that they’re passionate about and (us) making sure they have a location to play that sport.”

Low said these are the only two sports teams at Davidson that are presently going to feature a co-op arrangement. He said before they agreed to team up with Loreburn and Kenaston he first met with the coaches of each Raiders team to look at the numbers and decide if it would make a good fit, which in each case it did.

“In terms of football it’s really good because our numbers have never been really high,” said Low. “Last year for example we had to have a few Grade 9s play in our game situations and in a regular program the Grade 9s won’t play. They would come to the games and they would participate in the fifth quarter versus the other team’s Grade 9s. It gives us a little more depth and allows us to help those players develop without having to throw them into game situations where they might get hurt.

To read more please see the May 12 print edition of The Davidson Leader.