MADELIA — Because of low numbers in grades 9-12, Madelia has decided to cancel its 2019-20 girls’ basketball season.

The announcement came on Wednesday after the coaching staff had only three girls out for the sport at the varsity level. The program has no seniors, one junior, no sophomores and two freshmen out for the sport.

“I think it was this week on Wednesday for sure because the coach had met with several of the girls who decided to not come out,” Madelia Activities Director Paul Carpenter said. “We had to act on it then, we had to make a decision and go with it.”

Girls’ basketball head coach Shelby Wiederhoeft met with several of the players who were out last year and was informed that they would not be going out this year. Wiederhoeft is in her second season as the girls’ head coach. At this stage in the season, Carpenter said that there was no other option than to cancel the season.

“There was no other option, right now as we stand, there’s only three returning girls out from grades 9-12,” he said. “There are a couple of other girls’ out, their first year in basketball, so there’s actually a total of five. We’re going to try to run a C-squad schedule, usually some of the eighth-graders will move up.”

The Madelia girls went 5-21 last year in basketball and this year in volleyball, the Blackhawks finished the year 0-27. Carpenter doesn’t think that the struggles in the volleyball season led to players not going out for basketball.

“I don’t think there’s a connection with the volleyball struggles, because the numbers there are fine and there aren’t really any issues there,” he said. “Everything started two years ago. We had a group of 15 girls that didn’t go out for basketball, including eight seniors, so there were 15 juniors and seniors that didn’t go out and so then our numbers were diminished. But we still ran a varsity and a JV and then last year a couple more didn’t go out.

“This year, we didn’t have large numbers to start with, but the ones that we had decided not to go out,” Carpenter said. “I think maybe the main reason is probably is that they were a little bit intimidated with the season being a mis-match with a lot of the teams and not wanting to go through not being competitive and things like that — that’s my speculation.”

Carpenter thinks that there will be a varsity program next year. There are about 15-16 kids out in the junior high program and those girls will play on the junior high and c-squads.

“It’s difficult for everyone around, it’s difficult for coaches and the administration,” Carpenter said. “I’m sure it’s difficult for the parents and I’m sure it’s difficult for the alumni, who don’t want to see something like this happen, but it’s also difficult for our conference and our section, it’s difficult because of the officials that we have contracted and all the other personnel that go along with a varsity season.”