GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — Grand Island Senior High School will not be offering varsity girls basketball this winter.

The school made the announcement Friday morning. A news release says no junior or senior student athletes are planning to go out for the sport. Grand Island has the largest girls enrollment of any school in Nebraska. According to the Nebraska School Activities Association, there are 967 girls in grades 9-11 enrolled at the high school.

A school spokesman says Grand Island will not offer junior varsity girls basketball, either. Instead, the school will work to develop younger players at the freshman and reserve levels.

“We’re committed to this program.  And it’s because of our commitment to cultivating girls basketball at Grand Island — and our state — that we are taking this difficult but innovative approach,” Activities Director Chris Ladwig said in a statement. “We want to provide the best student athlete experience we possibly can for our kids.  Right now, we don’t have the numbers to roster an upper-class Varsity team.  So, our focus will be to continue developing our Freshman and Sophomore players and put together a “full court press” towards re-building our youth programs in our community.  We stand behind Coach Langrehr and her vision for this program — she has our full support.”

Kathryn Langrehr, who is entering her third year as head coach, and her staff will remain with the program. The Islanders went 1-22 last season with a 53-2 win over winless Omaha Bryan. Grand Island lost all of its other games by at least 26 points. The program hasn’t won more than three games in a season since the 2016-17 campaign.

Langrehr and the district have already started efforts to encourage participation at younger levels. The district organized 14 free basketball clinics this fall.

“Unfortunately, we’re seeing a trend across the state” Superintendent Matt Fisher said, “Numerous high schools across all classes are facing challenges with fielding teams for Girls Basketball.  As difficult as the decision is to not offer a varsity schedule for a year, we agree with our Activities Department and Girls Basketball Coaching staff that we need to be more proactive in building long term solutions for the program.”

The release says the coaching staff will spend more time working with the district’s youth and middle school programs this winter.