The goal of most high school sports teams is to promote hard work in athletics and provide a fun environment to voice school spirit. Adding Benilde-St. Margaret’s would achieve neither of these goals.

Benilde joined the upcoming Metro West Conference which includes Bloomington Jefferson, Bloomington Kennedy, Chaska, Chanhassen, Cooper and Park Sept. 10. These schools came together when their previous different conferences ended to form a new one. These schools have appealed the addition of Benilde to the conference.

These schools share roughly the same student size and demographics, making them ideal competitors in sports. Each of the seven schools are public high schools with comparable demographics in areas like free or reduced lunch, or student body size, both of which are indicators of student characteristics.

Compared to the other schools in the soon-to-be conference, Benilde is unsuited in a variety of ways. It has a smaller class size and a stronger athletics department than the public schools of the rest of the conference. Benilde has demonstrated its ability to easily defeat other teams in the current conference by reaching the state championship with 19 teams across 10 sports within the past decade.

This mismatch in skill is also discouraging for school sport fans, many of whom celebrate and cherish big games such as Homecoming, and hope for competitive rivalries. Adding the sports powerhouse Benilde can hurt schools attempting to raise spirit for an upcoming game if the results are already expected.

Benilde belongs in a tougher, more skilled league such as the Lake Conference, where they can play against more skilled opponents. Students should voice their opinions to their Minnesota State High School League regional secretary about why they feel their own team should have a chance at winning during the season.