{"id":128896,"date":"2025-09-24T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riverheadnewsreview.timesreview.com\/?p=128896"},"modified":"2025-09-23T15:02:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T19:02:00","slug":"low-enrollment-hurting-east-end-football-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverheadnewsreview.timesreview.com\/2025\/09\/128896\/low-enrollment-hurting-east-end-football-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"Low enrollment hurting East End football teams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With high school football becoming less and less popular on the East End of Long Island, participation numbers have dropped so low that Greenport and Southampton had to flat out cancel their seasons<\/a>. Other local area teams are having the same issue. Even Riverhead<\/a>, a local Division I program and a school that has a massive class enrollment, struggles to fill both a junior varsity and varsity team. It begs the question: Is football on the East End a thing of the past?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shoreham-Wading River \u2014 a team that has always had success on the football field, making the playoffs<\/a> just about every season and even winning a few championships along the way \u2014 is now having trouble filling its roster. When you look up and down Shoreham-Wading River\u2019s varsity football roster, there\u2019s 35 players \u2014 a very healthy number. The problem is, however, there is no longer a junior varsity team. There\u2019s 35 players in total within all of the high school.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to practice together now,\u201d SWR head coach Aden Smith said. \u201cWe bring everyone on the roster to the varsity games but we have around 13 kids that participate in junior varsity game scrimmages on Mondays. We just don\u2019t have enough to run two full teams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith has seen a trend of dwindling numbers in his own program. Year after year, fewer kids come out for the football team. Part of the season is that some kids decide to focus on one sport. You rarely see the three-sport athletes anymore. But for others, who knows?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what the reason is personally,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI love football and all these kids love playing football. We have a great program. We send kids to college all the time to play football. It\u2019s just a shift. It\u2019s something we have to deal with, and we\u2019re making the best out of what we have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two sides of the coin were seen in the first two weeks of the Wildcats\u2019 football season<\/a>. They faced off against Center Moriches in the first week of the season \u2014 a team with similar enrollment numbers \u2014 and they took care of business handily, coming away with a 60-21 victory. Five different players scored touchdowns. Anthony Mullen scored four on the ground himself. But then this Saturday, they took on Bayport-Blue Point, the reigning Suffolk County champions. The Phantoms have a sideline full of players, a lineup dominated by upperclassmen, and both a varsity and JV team to help with development. The Wildcats couldn\u2019t find the endzone and seemingly stood no chance, losing the game 48-0.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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