COCOLAMUS — A last-ditch effort to revive field hockey in Juniata County has fallen short, closing the book on a sport that once had deep roots in the region.

For weeks, athletic officials held out hope that enough interest might surface to save the program — just 10 seventh- or eighth-grade girls from Tuscarora or East Juniata junior high schools. Ten players to keep a tradition alive. Ten players to justify a junior high team that could eventually rebuild a once decorated varsity program.

But the sign-up sheets stayed thin. Even after the district extended the deadline an extra week, the number never budged.

“We are not having it,” Juniata County Athletic Director Travis Quici said Friday, the finality in his voice matching the reality on the ground.

A program that once had pride

Field hockey isn’t new to Juniata County. For years, East Juniata and Juniata high schools fielded their own teams, each with its own history, rivalries and alumni who still remember the smell of wet turf and the thud of a ball off a wooden stick. When numbers dipped, the schools combined into a cooperative at East Juniata — a move meant to preserve the sport’s future.

But even the co-op couldn’t outrun the slow erosion of participation.

At the Jan. 15 school board meeting, officials made the situation plain: without at least 10 junior high players, there would be no team. No feeder program. No path back to varsity competition.

And now, no field hockey.

A brutal league and a brutal stretch

Even before the hiatus, the varsity team faced a mountain. The Tri-Valley League is one of the toughest small-school leagues in Pennsylvania — a place where programs like Susquenita, Greenwood, Newport and Line Mountain don’t just compete; they contend for state titles.

Susquenita is the reigning PIAA Class A champion. Greenwood reached the state semifinals. On paper, the Tigers were sharing a league with giants.

On the field, the results reflected that gap. In 2023, East Juniata went 0-8 in league play and 0-16 overall, outscored 182-1. In TVL games alone, the margin was 103-0. Those numbers weren’t just losses — they were symptoms of a program running out of players, experience and momentum.

A changing landscape

The rise of girls soccer has also reshaped the athletic picture. Soccer is offered in the spring at the junior high level, giving athletes another option — one that has drawn steady interest.

Quici described the soccer numbers as “solid,” a word that stands in stark contrast to the dwindling field hockey sign-ups.

A quiet ending

There was no dramatic vote, no emotional meeting, no last-minute surge of players. Just a deadline, a headcount and the quiet realization that a sport that once filled fall afternoons in Juniata County no longer had enough players to carry on.

For now, field hockey is a program that has slipped away — not with controversy, but with a slow fade, the kind that happens when interest shifts, demographics change and a once-steady pipeline finally runs dry.

Whether it ever returns will depend on future athletes, future interest and a future moment when 10 girls decide they want to pick up sticks again.