So many spring sports, so few students

Spring time is here, and baseballs are zipping around the San Lorenzo Valley High baseball field — barely.
Just 10 boys went out for the SLV varsity baseball team at the beginning of this season. Only nine could be fielded for the junior varsity team.
This week, the JV program was canceled, and the teams were combined.
“We just don’t have the bodies,” head coach Shane Sutcliffe said. “The program just doesn’t have what it used to as far as ball players go.”
Sutcliffe is among several coaches feeling the squeeze of lower enrollment numbers at San Lorenzo Valley High.
In all, 371 boys are attending SLV high this year, along with 367 girls, and about half of those are upperclassmen. Meanwhile, seven spring sports — baseball, volleyball, track, swimming, diving, tennis and golf — draw in a significant number of both varsity and junior varsity athletes, and many sports require a specific number to simply field a team.
“We are all feeling the sting,” track coach Rob Collins said. “Where I used to have 50 male athletes out for track, I only get 30 or so now.”
Ten years ago, the high school enrolled 1,178 students. Today, that number is 738. The admissions office at the school said the demographic change was foreseeable, but not without its setbacks.
“These lower numbers mean I have to radically change the way I set out to win a meet,” Collins said. “Our team just isn’t as deep, so the athletes have to compete in more events.”
Scotts Valley High finds itself in a similar situation.
The school had to scrape this season to pull together a boys volleyball team, after sitting out in 2010 because it had too few players. Most of this year’s team is freshman. Though the Falcons’ numbers are a bit higher, Scotts Valley still has only 414 boys and 367 girls enrolled.
But though the teams are sparse and lack the numbers that the Santa Cruz High and Aptos High have, the competition in the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League is still fierce.
“The neat thing about Scotts Valley High,” said Louie Walters, athletic coordinator, “is that our school has only had seniors in our programs for eight years. We are really a brand-new school.”
The inaugural class at Scotts Valley graduated in 2003.
Despite low numbers, the coaches at San Lorenzo Valley and Scotts Valley continue to field strong teams.
**Scotts Valley baseball head coach Buddy Carrigan has helped lead the team to four league titles in the past five seasons.
**Art Munoz has led the Falcon girls soccer teams to four championship seasons in five years for Scotts Valley.
**Louie Walters and his football coaching staff collected four league titles in a row for the Falcons football team between 2006 and 2010.
**SLV track and field coach Rob Collins has helped the Cougars pump out champion track and cross country runners. The school’s distance runners have won league, section and state titles.
**Doug Morris and his coaching staff have won three Central Coast Section Division IV titles and 13 SCCAL football titles since Morris took the reins in 1989.
**SLV wrestling coach Ken Pollastrini has coached individual wrestlers to several CCS championships and sent a Cougar wrestler to the past four state wrestling championships.