EWING -- They stood. Hair wet from a post-game shower. Eyes wet from a last game. Ever.

Running back Josiah Switzer had a sizable bump on his shin. Others had bags of ice on their shoulders.

The last Ewing football team stood in front of the school's packed trophy case Monday night.

There sat the 2008 state Class D-2 football championship trophy. The Class C-2 football runner-up trophy from 1980. Basketball trophies. Golf trophies.

There won't be any more football trophies.

Ewing, with nine seniors on its 14-player roster this fall, is not alone in falling victim to the numbers game. More than 25 former state football champion teams are no more.

Twenty years of mergers, co-ops and consolidations have left us without teams named Benedict and Beemer, Adams and Filley. Add Ewing to that growing list.

The Eagles are among at many as 14 football teams across the state that will disappear as part of a co-operative or merger agreement next year, most of them disappearing from the eight-man ranks.

Next season, Ewing will join forces with 11-man O'Neill.

"We talked, we planned and we ended up reaching a co-op plan for football with O'Neill," said Ewing principal and athletic director Greg Appleby. "It's hard. But we'll still have the school and still have the other sports here. It's a part of life when the numbers of students just aren't there."

More than 30 Nebraska schools have dropped football or joined with other schools since 1991, but the exodus of teams this offseason may be the largest seen in a single year.

Among those sharing rosters for the first time next year will be Pope John and Elgin, Prague and North Bend Central, Callaway and Arnold, Laurel-Concord and Coleridge, and Sandy Creek and Clay Center.

Others said to be exploring co-ops or mergers are Scribner-Snyder and Logan View, and Greeley-Wolbach and North Loup-Scotia.

Starting this spring, Bruning-Davenport and Shickley will join forces in all sports. No more Storm or Longhorns. They'll be the Eagles.

"The student councils of the two schools led us in the choices," said Trudy Clark, superintendent at Bruning-Davenport. "Sure, there are some hard feelings. But the co-op makes it safer for kids and provides more chances at participation."

Ewing, after enjoying a 37-4 run over the last four seasons, would have returned just five players for next year. With only four boys set to move up from junior high, the numbers simply didn't add up.

Ewing is a town of 405, located 55 miles northwest of Norfolk. The average age there is 41.

"A lot of great football since the 1940s," said former Tiger Bob Summers, one of at least 200 former Ewing football players who attended Monday's game.

The Tigers lost to Humphrey St. Francis in the Class D-2 semifinals.

"These 14 kids, who even with four three-year starters and 4,000 yards of offense gone from our state championship team in 2008, did so much," said Ewing coach Brock Eichelberger. "I'm so proud."

So what's next for Eichelberger, who was head coach at Ewing for eight years? "Don't know," he replied.

Prague and North Bend Central agreed to combine some junior high sports three years ago, paving the way for next year's co-op between the two schools in football.

"We looked at six-man football, which we played when it was sanctioned, but the travel would be too far to have a schedule," said Prague athletic director Kevin Behne. "We had 16 boys out for football this fall, but we had too many injuries - the injury of the week it seemed - and we felt going with North Bend was best."

The reaction?

"Great," Behne said, "but I feel a lot of our student body would rather play for the old blue and white of Prague."

Reach Ken Hambleton at 473-7313 or khambleton@journalstar.com.

The end of the road for Ewing football