CARROLL — For a short period of time, it appeared somewhat likely that Carroll High School would opt out — or try to void — their varsity girls basketball schedule for this season.
The Carroll School Board took no action on the matter Monday, leaving the schedule intact and thus ensuring that the remaining Raccoon River Conference teams were not suddenly left with a two-game void on their own slates.
The issue arose when concerns were raised about the makeup of the Tiger squad. No seniors are out for basketball this year, and only two juniors have committed to playing, leaving a combination of sophomores and freshmen to fill out the 18-girl roster.
The team has struggled in the past few seasons and there had been some concern expressed that a winless season — entailing numerous lopsided losses — would further erode the program and cause participation numbers to slump so low as to effectively end the sport.
The IGHSAU had been contacted, and while understanding the reason why Carroll was looking into — but had not committed to — requesting a freshman/junior varsity only schedule, said it would be too unfair, especially at this late date, to effect the schedules of all the Tiger opponents.
Carroll joins Boone, Winterset and Perry as Raccoon River Conference teams whose rosters do not have a large enough group of cagers needed to play a full varsity and sub-varsity slate of games, with those schools restricting players to six quarters of action so as to maintain varsity eligibility.
Perry is scheduled to host Carroll Dec. 18, with Jan. 29 the date for the game in Carroll.
