Last week, this column space talked about the risk of injury among high school athletes.

Studies have indicated that roughly one of every five prep athletes will suffer a significant injury at some point in their respective sports careers. It’s the nature of the beast, so to speak.

Such reality has not hurt the numbers of kids participating in athletics, however.

To the contrary, those numbers are going up like never before.

Other than high school football — which experienced a 2.5 percent decrease in players over the past year — sports continue to gain steam as a popular high school activity. And girls are leading the way.

According to the annual High School Athletics Participation Survey conducted by the National Federation of State High School Associations, high school girls participating in sports reached an all-time high of 3,400,297 in the United States in 2016-17.

That’s an increase of 75,791 over the previous year — the largest single year jump since 2000-01.

The biggest increase among female athletes has come in competitive spirit (cheerleading) teams. That sport is growing locally as well, with Karns City, Moniteau and Mars adding competitive spirit teams in recent years. Other schools are sure to follow.

This is the 45th anniversary of Title IX — the instituted law requiring equal athletic opportunity for females — and it has clearly made an impact over time.

Besides competitive spirit, female participation continues to grow in track and field, volleyball, soccer and lacrosse as well.

Anyone who follows sports in Butler County knows full well the success of teams like Seneca Valley and Freeport girls volleyball, Karns City girls basketball and soccer, Mars girls soccer, Butler girls track ... You could go on and on.

On the boys side, even with the slight decrease in football numbers, overall athletic numbers have increased. And there were still 1,086,748 high school boys playing football last year, easily the No. 1 sport in terms of high school participation.

Track and field is second with 600,136 boys, followed by basketball, baseball and soccer.

In terms of high school sports participation overall, Texas leads all states with 834,558 participants, followed closely by California at 800,364. Pennsylvania ranks sixth on that lost, trailing New York, Illinois and Ohio as well.

One other note: There are more than 60 different sports offered by high schools across the country. They include judo, kayaking, fencing, rugby, badminton, rodeo and archery, to name a few off the beaten path.

The bottom line is this. High school kids have a wider variety of sports to choose from than ever and more and more kids are taking advantage of such opportunities.

Injuries happen.

So do last memories and friendships.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle