Concordia Prep's baseball season would have ended Wednesday. It would have ended against a team that, last year, beat the team of first-timers and last-stringers 54-0 in two games.

But the school with a new name faced an old problem from the beginning: There weren't nine guys to fill the nine positions on the diamond.

As Salt Lake Lutheran last season, the Lynx were saved by a small group of players agreeing to play baseball for the first time, just to save the team. This year, there was no such movement and, as a result, there was no baseball team.

"I did the whole plea to the students again, but no one stepped up," said Concordia Principal Darren Morrison.

In 2010, the then-Lynx finished 2-9, constantly recruiting new players from the ranks of the tiny 1A school. They were featured in a Tribune story about getting by with little talent or, in some cases, no understanding of the game.

But, said coach Michael York, that wasn't always the point with the team.

"I like the fact that we could teach these guys about failure," York said, "because baseball is such a game of failure. We could teach them about going into a situation in competition where someone was actively trying to stop you from. You've got to manage your behavior, manage your emotions."

With five players expected to return from last year's team, York and Morrison could only find two new players. This year, enrollment dropped by more than a third to just 37 students. Plans are in place to move the private school to Riverton as early as next year, where administrators hope enrollment will boom. For now, though, baseball isn't the only sport at risk.

The girls' basketball team will move forward with six players. Instead of a baseball team, this fall, Concordia offered cross-country.

Two students participated.

"We have enough kids to field all the sports," Morrison said, "just not enough willing to play the sport."

It raises the question of whether it's worth even having sports at the school.

"I look back and say we didn't have a team," York said. "Did the guys really miss it? Are they really that torn that we didn't have a team?"

So York and Morrison alone are left to lament a lost losing team.

For Morrison, who played at the school in the 1990s, it's the pangs of nostalgia that hit him.

"It's been a long time since we haven't been able to field a baseball team," he said.

For York, it's knowing that a team that plays no games can't win any, and a team with five returners might have had a shot to be better.

"I was thinking we might actually have a shot to go to state this year," he said.

boram@sltrib.com

Twitter: @oramb

Facebook: facebook.com/tribpreps —

Concordia Prep baseball

Went 2-9 last year as Salt Lake Lutheran

Season was canceled after only seven boys, including five returners, signed up

Read about last year's team online from our archives:

> bit.ly/p1y8FG