As basketball programs came to life across the state on the first day of practice Monday, the Telstar girls’ team was dormant.

The Rebels have elected not to play this season. It’s the second time since 1975 that Telstar won’t field a team. After 15 consecutive losing seasons, Telstar did not play in 1990.

“Last year they finished the season with seven players and we didn’t have a JV team,” said Gail Wight, the Telstar athletic director. “We had some that graduated, some that moved away and a couple didn’t want to play. There’s not a new bunch out there. Our numbers are in the seventh and eighth grades.”

Telstar intends to start up again next season, but felt this was a move that was necessary. The numbers were too low and interest was dwindling as players contemplated competing on a squad that likely would have fewer than 10 players.

Administrators at Telstar talked with players and communicated with parents before determining that the best course of action was to forgo this season. There were as many as 11 players at one point, but that number quickly lessened at the thought of playing with few or no subs and having to commit to a club that might struggle mightily in a challenging Mountain Valley Conference.

“We had three or four different meetings with the girls,” said Wight. “It was good that they were honest about it instead of going into it and then being penalized or having to hound them to come to practice and play in a game.”

Had Telstar started the season and been unable to finish, the penalty by the Maine Principal’s Association would have been two years. That would have likely killed the program and devastated a group of 30-plus playing in the middle school.

“I have no doubt there will be a team here next year because the interest is there,” said Wight. “There’s a huge group in the eighth grade and another big group in the seventh grade.”

Telstar never made the playoffs until the open tournament in 2002, and didn’t post a winning season until going 12-6 in 2004. Though the Rebels were 2-16 last year, Telstar had produced four winning seasons and as many playoff berths in the last six years.

“The numbers are really dropping in the class C schools,” said Wight. “Our enrollments are all going down. We’re not trying to kill the program. It doesn’t have anything to do with wins and losses. It’s totally about numbers.”

Telstar also has a unique situation in which field hockey and softball have lasting championship traditions. Players have opportunity and motivation to aspire to those programs at a young age. There is also a strong ski program during the winter. A few years ago, Telstar had a strong group of athletes that came through that played all sports and helped take the basketball team to new heights. Replacing that group has been a challenge, especially when there were only one or two players coming up from the middle school this year.

“They don’t play basketball here,” said Wight. “In some places, they play basketball in the first grade. Right now, they’ve got a strong group of five and sixth graders that are playing. They play outside of the school on a town rec team. That makes a difference.”

Wight says open gym time will be made available during the year for girls that want to practice and a summer program, which wasn’t available last year, will be put in place next year to help jump-start things. Mark Kenney, a middle school teacher and coach, is expected to coach the squad.

“It’s not that basketball is dead,” said Wight. “It’s just an in-between year for some reason.”

Conference rescheduling

With Telstar pulling out of the season two weeks prior to the first day of practice left schools trying to redo their schedules.

Athletic directors in the MVC met last week to revamp schedules.

“What we had to do is take a look at what we could do to create the least amount of disruption with our schedules,” said Steve Ouellette, the Monmouth athletic director.

Originally, the MVC was to be divided into two divisions with teams playing within their division twice while playing four cross-over games. With Telstar out of the mix, that left four teams in the South with 18 games and four others with only 17. All the teams in the North had just 16 games.

“We were in a situation where we had to do what we could,” said Ouellette.

Factors that had to be considered included referees’ schedules, and many teams already having submitted schedules for publication and printing.

Teams in the South eliminated a second game within the division and picked up games with northern teams. The goal was to get all teams at least 17 games, and if others could pick up a game here or there to get 18, it was allowed. There are instances in which teams will play three times, and a couple teams will only have 17 games.

“The way we did it was kind of chaotic,” said Ouellette. “All in all, it wasn’t the ideal scenario to do it this way but based on the time we had and things we’d disrupt, we felt that we created the best possible situation.”

Ouellette said he had four alternate options to present to the MVC last week. Two of them were the least disruptive but one had teams with eight home games that couldn’t be fixed. Athletic directors met last week and were able to hash out a revamped schedule in about 90 minutes.

“We got what we needed with the least amount of disruption,” said Ouellette. “We all decided it was important for the league to help out and come together in that sense. In a time in which we really could have struggled in regards to solving this problem, I thought our ADs came together and did a great job to help each other out and solve a problem that could have created major chaos.”