Dowagiac still smallest team in Wolverine
Published 11:00 pm Tuesday, February 16, 2016
The Michigan High School Athletic Association will not release its enrollment numbers for the 2016-17 school year until the end of March, but the Wolverine Conference already knows its figures.
According to those figures, the league had six schools show increased enrollment over the last year being led by Otsego, which gained 27 students.
Plainwell saw the biggest drop with a loss of 16 students.
The difference between the largest school, which is Sturgis with 932 students, and its smallest school, which is Dowagiac with 610 students, increased by seven pupils from 315 to 322.
“Dowagiac has been the smallest school in the Wolverine Conference since we’ve joined the league with the exception of the two years with Berrien Springs and Coloma,” Dowagiac athletic director Brent Nate said. “Our coaches and athletes have done a great job to committing to the overall development of our athletes and athletic programs. We have to strived to continue to improve our programs from the youth programs up to the varsity level and encourage our students to be multi-sport athletes to make up for the disadvantages that we have in terms of enrollment.”
The 610 students reported this year is a decrease of just one pupil from the 2015-16 numbers.
WOLVERINE CONFERENCE ENROLLMENT
School 2016-17 2015-16
Sturgis 932 926
Vicksburg 863 858
Edwardsburg 855 851
Plainwell 791 807
Three Rivers 734 744
Allegan 683 678
Otsego 679 652
South Haven 674 676
Paw Paw 672 653
Dowagiac 610 611