Lancaster Mennonite School (LM) announced that the former Mennonite Sports Organization (MSO) will get a facelift and restructure its offerings. The youth sports program operated by the school changed its name to Lancaster Mennonite Youth Athletics (LMYA).

The name change is a signal to parents, students, and the community of how the program is expanding and realigning focus. While the mission remains to offer Christ-centered youth sports programs that transform student-athletes to grow in character and skill during their pre-middle school and high school years, there is now an increased emphasis on adding competitive offerings for older youths to prepare them for participating in LM's competitive middle school and high school sports teams.

Currently, LMYA has several youth sports offerings. They include soccer, field hockey, and basketball for kindergarten to sixth grade and softball and baseball for kindergarten through eighth grade. LMYA is not exclusive to Lancaster Mennonite School students. Students who attend LM and those who are part of the local community and do not attend LM are welcome to participate in the teams and can register for a sports league at http://www.lancastermennonite.org/athletics/mso.

Starting as early as this spring, in advance of LM's system-wide unification, LMYA will offer travel teams for the oldest divisions of the LMYA sports available. The younger divisions will be known as the recreation league and will match their current format. Sports for older students will be in competitive travel leagues. Details are available on the website noted in the last paragraph.

This new structure's design will match what many school districts are doing during the intermediate and middle school years for their internal student-athletes. This structure is designed to help grow LM's student-athletes to compete at the varsity level in the future.

Additional changes include having all LMYA games and practices at the LM Lancaster campus, using LM's facilities, outdoor fields, and indoor courts. LM has two indoor gyms, multiple grass fields, and a new turf surface at its stadium that will be completed this summer.