This year, Morro Bay High School will be a part of a new athletic league, meaning that the teams each sport will face has changed. This new league challenges Morro Bay High School (MBHS) teams and will contribute to an even better school year for the Pirates. This change is accompanied by many others inside of our athletics program.
The 2018/2019 sports league will include the following teams: Arroyo Grande, Atascadero, Mission Prep, Morro Bay, Nipomo, Orcutt Academy, Paso Robles, Pioneer Valley, Righetti, San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria, St. Joseph, and Templeton. These thirteen schools will be broken down further into two sections to keep matches fair.
All of the schools that are currently in the 2018/2019 athletics league are spread out around the Central Coast, with the farthest being about 50 miles away in Santa Maria. Speaking about the challenges that will accompany this change, Morro Bay High School’s athletics director Coach Andree said that, “ [although] everything competition should be much better…the most difficult transition is scheduling. Because not all of our teams are in the same league it put stress on our facilities for scheduling boys and girls games which are in the same season. You will see that some of the games had to be played on alternative dates to schedules.”
In previous years, Morro Bay High School has been a part of the Southern Section, which included over 500 schools. Because of the magnitude of this, competitions were sometimes very far away, meaning that teams had to travel extensively. With this change, Coach Andree hopes that Morro Bay will be “much more successful. For a small school like us it was becoming more difficult to keep pace with schools that had double our participation….We can already see this happening in the fall. Boys Water Polo, Girls Water Polo, Girls Golf, Girls Volleyball and Girls Cross Country already are having great success and will be challenging for league championships, so expect to see many more years going on the banners.”
Discussing our athletics program, he continued, saying that “We also added 2 more sports (Girls Wrestling and Girls Stunt) which now puts us at 24 varsity sports…..and we now will field 50 teams (Var, JV & Fresh). For a school our size that is remarkable…we field two more varsity sports than SLO! That being said I expect us to do much better in league.”
This new league and the addition of Girls Wrestling and Girls stunt are not the only changes that Morro Bay High School’s athletics program is making. Because of Measure D funds, our school is also the proud home of “a state of the art pool, new all-weather track, new pole vault area, renovated baseball and softball complex and reflooring of the small gym.”
With new changes and improvements coming so quickly, the Morro Bay High School athletics program is hopeful that they can have an opportunity for every student: “Morro Bay Athletics has a sport for everyone. We want all students to get involved in sports. We currently have about 65% of our students playing sports and would like that number to get to 100%. I am in my office daily and am willing to sit down with any student to find a sport for them to play! They are missing out on a great life experience to make new friends and have a new experience. What a great time to be a PIRATE ATHLETE! GO PIRATES!”
