King’s Academy girls soccer wins program’s first state championship
King’s Academy took down Palmer Trinity
The Palm Beach Gardens High School softball team has canceled its 2026 season due to low player participation.Several other historically successful Palm Beach County softball programs have also recently shuttered.The Palm Beach Gardens baseball team has also experienced a significant drop in player numbers in recent years.
The Palm Beach Gardens softball program is the most prominent among several Palm Beach County high school varsity teams facing daunting player participation issues.
Palm Beach Gardens softball is on a “temporary hiatus” and will not field a team for the 2026 FHSAA regular season, which began on Monday, Feb. 16.
The Palm Beach County School District released a statement on Tuesday, which indicated that the team “did not meet the minimum roster requirements.” Student-athletes at Palm Beach Gardens High School will be allowed to seek opportunities to play softball at other county schools.
“The School District Athletics Department and the school’s administration are collaborating to offer softball at the school again next season,” the PBCSD statement read. “Softball players have been given the opportunity to join other spring sports teams at the school, or they may also explore softball opportunities at other schools.”
Palm Beach Gardens softball has been one of the county’s top programs for much of the last 25 years. The Gators’ softball team has won four FHSAA state championships (2005, 2006, 2010, 2011), tied for the ninth-most all-time.
The cause of player participation issues at a program of such stature — and at a large public school with an enrollment of more than 2,400 students in a city with vibrant youth sporting programs — is not so simple.
Members of the Gardens coaching staff told The Palm Beach Post that the team’s roster included 15 players in February until seniors opted out of the season. Senior players interviewed by The Post cited months of inconsistent participation, including many practices with as few as five total players.
Since news of the “hiatus” broke, readers of The Palm Beach Post have given their own diagnoses in recent letters to the editor. Those readers cited school district rezoning, the rivalry between recreational sports programs and “travel ball” teams, and Florida’s embrace of school choice educational policies.
Palm Beach Gardens’ softball program also recently endured the emotional closure of its “state-of-the-art” softball facility at Plant Park.
The facility, which was named “Amanda J. Buckley Field of Dreams” after a Gardens softball player who was murdered in 2007, hosted its final games in 2025 and was demolished to make room for a controversial $40 million-dollar luxury ice rink complex backed by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky.
Here’s a look at other notable programs which have faced player participation challenges in recent years:
Palm Beach Gardens baseball team also dwindled
The Palm Beach Gardens baseball team, which finished as state runner-up in Florida’s largest classification in 2022, has also suffered from low player participation in recent seasons.
In 2025, Gardens baseball only fielded 15 varsity players and had no junior varsity team. The Gators finished 10-14 and lost in the district tournament quarterfinals, a significant slide from the program’s historic high just four years ago.
Head coach Matt Judkins, who had taught at the school for 10 years, left the program over the summer to take a teaching job at the Benjamin School, where he now works as an assistant baseball coach.
“The writing was on the wall,” said Judkins, whose program, hampered by frequent transfers, was 22-51-2 since the state championship game appearance. “It was time to move on.”
Palm Beach County’s shuttered varsity softball programs
While Palm Beach Gardens’ “hiatus” stands out due to the school’s size and historic success, they are far from the only prominent county school not fielding a team.
Lake Worth Christian softball, which qualified for the FHSAA regionals in 14 of 15 seasons between 2004 and 2019, has not fielded a team since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought an early end to the 2020 FHSAA spring sports season.
The Defenders’ second-to-last softball team was nearly scratched due to low player count. A months-long campaign at the school managed to bring just enough players to field a team in spring 2018. Lake Worth Christian then made an unexpected run to the Class 2A state semifinals.
Grandview Prep softball, which won an FHSAA state championship in 2012 and finished as state runner-up in 2010, 2011, 2015 and 2016, has not fielded a softball team since 2017.
The Benjamin School, which has campuses in Palm Beach Gardens and North Palm Beach, also has not fielded a softball team since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trinity Christian Academy teams hit by school closure
A Lake Worth-based private school, Trinity Christian Academy fielded some of the county’s best varsity baseball teams and playoff-caliber softball teams until its abrupt recent closure.
A controversial letter from the school’s pastor in 2024 led to the widespread departure of students and staff. Trinity Christian Academy ceased operations at the close of the 2025 school year.
Eric J. Wallace is deputy sports editor for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at ejwallace@usatodayco.com.
Comments are closed.