Red Storm player D.J. Morgan faces off against a Massena player on May 8 at Schroeter’s Field in Saranac Lake. Morgan holds the team’s all-time scoring record with 99 career goals. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

SARANAC LAKE — The Saranac Lake School Board voted to field a boys modified lacrosse team Wednesday night.

The board also discussed the details of the newly merged Saranac Lake-Lake Placid boys varsity lacrosse team.

The board had initially considered cutting boys modified lacrosse in a deal earlier this year.

“The district will fund the modified program for the upcoming season with the commitment of 16 players minimum,” said Eric Bennett, athletic director for Saranac Lake School District.

In the past, Saranac Lake has hosted a varsity Saranac Lake team with Lake Placid players on the roster — known as the Red Storm. The Saranac Lake school district paid for this team, with the caveat that Lake Placid players had to find their own way to Saranac Lake facilities to practice and play.

Earlier this year, Saranac Lake and Lake Placid agreed to merge the Red Storm boys varsity team into an SLP team for the 2019 season that Lake Placid would pay for — that includes coaching, official, travel and other fees. Saranac Lake will pay for girls varsity lacrosse. According to school board documents, this is estimated to save around $12,400. However, under this new arrangement, Saranac Lake will be responsible for busing players back and forth between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, an estimated cost of $4,000 for the season.

“So we thought we were addressing the issue with the added transportation,” Superintendent Diane Fox said.

“Let’s say the boys were in Lake Placid week one and the girls were in Saranac Lake. A bus from Saranac Lake might take our boys over to Placid, pick up Lake Placid’s girls, come over,” Bennett said. “And at the end of the night, and this is for varsity, a bus from Lake Placid might bring our boys back, and pick up their girls.”

As part of this arrangement, the board considered cutting boys modified lacrosse, as the team did not have enough players to field a team last spring.

Parents and players of boys modified lacrosse protested this decision at the Oct. 3 school board meeting, citing concerns like the skill gap that could cause — stating that without playing at a competitive level at a young age, players would be at a disadvantage by the time they got old enough to play varsity.

After a fact finding roundtable, which included coaching staff from Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, Fox, and Bennett, among others, it was decided that boys modified lacrosse would still be offered.

“I do think that we want to make sure we’re fielding a healthy team — we talked about 16 being a healthy team,” Fox said. “There was some discussion at the table about perhaps asking students to make a commitment before the season.”

The estimated savings of $12,425 from Lake Placid picking up the boys varsity team against the $4,000 in new transportation costs and the projected $9,898 that fielding a modified team would yield a net estimated cost to the district of $1,473. Fox said she wanted to bring the idea of fielding a modified team to the board because the estimated costs and savings netted somewhat even.

“May our budget always look this good,” Fox said.

Other considerations put forward were starting modified lacrosse later, at 3:30 p.m., so that Lake Placid players might have more time to arrange rides with parents to get to Saranac Lake for practice.

Bennett said he would begin going around to gym classes soon, and canvassing the hallways, to find out what kind of commitment there is for modified lacrosse among local lacrosse players.

“If you’re an athlete in Saranac Lake you can do track, baseball, golf, lacrosse — you can go over to Lake Placid and play tennis,” Bennett said, “so there are a lot of great options for our kids. I think it’s not out of, you know, the realm of reasonablility to see who wants to do what a little bit early.”