St. Mary's head coach Jamie Young, shown talking with players in August, said his program will forfeit its final three games in 2024. The Crusaders faced a similar scenario in 2010 and are currently weighing their options for future seasons.

Citing safety concerns due to low player numbers, St. Mary’s has chosen to forfeit its remaining three football games and cut its season short for the second time in 14 years and third time in about two decades for the program.

“We just did not have enough available players,” said Jamie Young, who serves as athletic director and is in his 15th season as head football coach at St. Mary’s School. “It got to the point where it just wasn’t safe for us to continue to go with the numbers and the experience of the kids that we had remaining.”

The Crusaders entered the season with one of the least experienced rosters in Young’s tenure and only 26 available players overall, but consecutive weeks with a couple injuries left them “down to about 16 or 17 players” for Friday’s scheduled game against Cascade Christian.

“In football, there’s also the makeup where that includes players across the different grades,” he said, with more than half of the St. Mary’s roster comprised of freshmen and sophomores. “We were just in a position where we were starting to have to play people out of position from where they had been working for the entire year. That, in itself, presents a risk when someone’s playing a position that they have not been playing.

“It’s a very tough decision to make,” Young added about canceling the rest of the season, “but I just think that in the interest of the safety of our players, we just didn’t have a choice.”

St. Mary’s was coming off a 54-3 loss to North Valley, dropping the Class 3A Crusaders to 0-6 overall and 0-2 in Southern Oregon Conference play. St. Mary’s had been outscored 259-27 through last Friday, with long field goals by Davis Jones providing the only points in each of the last two weeks.

“It just became concerning on are we doing the right thing and are we protecting our kids, especially our newer kids,” said Young. “We have multiple freshmen that were out there starting on the field so just in the best interest of kids — as hard of a decision as that is — I just didn’t see another option where I could feel comfortable protecting my team.”

Young encountered the same situation in 2010 during his first season as head coach and second within the program. Low numbers and mounting injuries forced St. Mary’s to forfeit its final four games that season — not unprecedented because the Crusaders had done similar under Dick Maurer in the early 2000s — and then follow with independent schedule against peers closer to their situation for the ensuing three seasons from 2011-13.

In the last stint, St. Mary’s returned to conference play in 2014 after moving on from being an independent and gradually built back to a playoff-level 3A program (2016, 2018, 2019, 2022).

Young said it’s too early to define what the program’s next steps will be after making the move to cancel the final three games on Saturday.

“My hope is that this is a three-game hiatus,” he said. “However, right now we’re in the process of having individual meetings with the players who are on board for moving forward and will be moving forward next year. Once we go through all those and look at who we have coming up through our middle school program, we’ll evaluate what is in the best interest of player safety and the program.”

St. Mary’s School won nine state championships from 1959–1983 and twice finished as state runner-up in that span. The Crusaders enjoyed a proud history under head coach Larry Walker during that time but have struggled to recapture that status here in Medford over the last three decades, with more school opportunities in the area and fewer attendees overall dipping into that success rate.

“We believe football has tremendous value on this campus,” said Young, “and we are really proud of the past 15 years in what we’ve been able to accomplish coming from where we came from back prior to 2010 and the year 2010.

“Our goal is to get back to that place where we’re competitive at the 3A classification and continue to move our program forward. That’s the plan. How exactly that’s going to happen right now is to be determined, but I can tell you that we’re actively working on that right now.”

St. Mary’s will finish its season with an 0-9 record overall and 0-5 ledger in Southern Oregon Conference play. The Crusaders’ remaining games were to be played against Cascade Christian on Friday, and home dates against Klamath Union (Oct. 25) and Phoenix (Nov. 1).

Cascade Christian athletic director Nate Mayben said the school searched all weekend and couldn’t find an opponent to fill Friday’s void so the fifth-ranked Challengers will be accepting a forfeit and now have two weeks to prepare for a key SOC showdown Oct. 25 at No. 7 North Valley.

Since Friday’s game was supposed to also serve as senior night for Cascade Christian, Mayben said the school has decided to hold a large-scale event that will include a 5 p.m. tailgate at Lithia & Driveway Fields that will be followed by a senior night recognition at 6:45 p.m., homecoming ceremony at 7:25 and alumni flag football game at 7:45.

A bounce house with kids games and prizes will also be on hand for Friday’s event for Cascade Christian.

Phoenix athletic director James Joy said the school is searching to see if it can find a replacement game for what would have been its regular-season finale on Nov. 1. If not, the Pirates’ season likely will come to an end Oct. 25 with a home date against Lakeview.

Should the Pirates wind up accepting the forfeit, they will be guaranteed their most wins in a season since going 2-6 in 2019. Phoenix, which currently stands 2-4 overall (without the forfeit) entering Friday’s game at Klamath Union, last enjoyed a winning season in 2017 following a 7-3 campaign.