Paulsboro also couldn't field an entire varsity team at the start of the season. It appears that the reason was a lack of player interest after the team went 1-11 in the Colonial Conference in 2010.
Coach Monica Koraido said the Red Raiders played Gateway on Monday and lost, 7-0, in a seven-on-seven game. Paulsboro is scheduled to play Haddon Heights on Thursday and West Deptford on Friday. Koraido said she expects to have 11 players by Friday.
"We had nine players last year," said McBride, who is also on Wildwood Catholic's varsity swimming and softball teams. "We played the season with nine, and we lost every [game] but one. We tied, 1-1."
The Crusaders were able to compete with nine last season because opponents in the Cape-Atlantic National Division were willing to sit out a couple of players.
But this season, Wildwood Catholic is down to six players and all that coach Mark Chinnis can do is hold practices.
"It's hard not being able to have a full team," McBride said. "As long as we keep practicing, maybe we'll have a team next year, because three or four eighth-graders are showing interest."
The eighth graders are in the same building with the high schoolers, which gives McBride and her teammates, a freshman and four sophomores, an opportunity to recruit when the moment presents itself.
"If I drop it, it'll be hard to start it up again," Chinnis said about the team. So he holds practices two to three times a week, doing stickhandling drills.
Chinnis and his wife, Pam, have run the program for four years and just can't bear to see it fold. They have vowed to hold practices until the sport regenerates at the school.
