By COLBY SCHIKORA
Advance Reporter
BRITTON – For small-town sports, sometimes making unforeseen adjustments is a necessity. For Britton-Deerfield, the adjustment was adding some newer, younger faces to a few of its spring sports rosters.
With high school enrollment hovering around 125 students, numbers for spring sports started to look thin. Rather than scale things back, the school opted for an alternative. With approval from the Michigan High School Athletic Association and its league, eighth graders are now eligible to suit up for varsity spring sports.
For now, it’s a spring-only adjustment, aimed at keeping softball strong and allowing the school to field a junior varsity baseball team, something Britton-Deerfield hasn’t been able to do for over a decade. On the field, it allows for the younger players to get an extra year of experience, and the veterans to play a crucial mentor role.
Some of the eighth graders are coming in knowing a few of the older girls. Others didn’t know any.
“It’s definitely scary… having to be good,” eighth-grader Claire Forche admitted. “But it’s really fun because everybody’s really supportive and helpful. I just transferred schools here, so everything has been new to me.”
For a player such as Lucy Smith, she already has the relationships with older girls from playing in the marching band. As for Lacey Gill, she has never played softball before, so this jump is only the start of her softball career at Britton-Deerfield.
“I’ve never played before, so it’s really hard,” she said. “But they teach me stuff that I’ve never known.”
Not only is this extra year of experience beneficial for the student-athletes, but it allows the program to get an extra year of teaching and mentorship in. In a small community like this, that can mean everything.
“Not only do these kids benefit from an extra year of experience, but this program gets another year of growth,” coach Stacey Johnson said. “Now I have kids who will hopefully be with me for five years, and by the time they are a senior they will then have all of the skills we’ve taught.”
There’s no expectation that an eighth grader will step in and play like a senior. Instead, the focus is on growth, getting comfortable, learning the game, and building confidence one day at a time. In a smaller district, programs are built over several years, and bringing players up earlier gives them more time to develop and allows for some stability within the program.
And in a spring season where athletes are often pulled in multiple directions — golf, track, baseball, softball — the young players are maturing through being in multiple places throughout the spring season.
“If you walked out on the field, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” Johnson said. “We just want to work with the kids and be with the kids, so it doesn’t matter to me what age they are, I’m not going to treat them any differently.”
Everyone is stepping into their roles at Britton Deerfield successfully, and this extra year will go a long way in the development of not only the players, but the Patriots program.
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