They're the new boys on the field.

When the fall sports season rolls around, St. Francis will send its first boys to the Pac-Five intermediate football team for Interscholastic League of Honolulu play. Athletic plans for St. Francis' coming school year include its own intermediate boys basketball and baseball teams and even a few golfers and track runners.

An all-girls school for more than 80 years, St. Francis recently started to integrate boys in certain grade levels. This coming year, St. Francis will have its first middle-school boy students in seventh and eighth grade. Their presence will also allow the private Catholic school in Manoa to field its first boys athletic teams.

"It'll be the new boys on the block and the only boys on campus compared to 300 some-odd girls," said St. Francis boys athletic director Sol Batoon. "That'll be interesting to see how it works. We seem to have some real good kids who came in."

St. Francis will have seven boys — Isaac Savaiiaea, Blayne Won, Austin Ursua, Keoni Tom-Millare, Kahanu Puule, Shawn Baptiste and Jon-Michael Sharsh — competing for Pac-Five's football team this fall. It'll be a first of sorts for both programs as Pac-Five, which draws players from small ILH schools, is fielding its first team in years.

"It's going good," said Sharsh, an eighth-grader. "The plays are easy to catch on."

NEW SCHOOL

Attending a new school is always a transition. Attending one that is predominantly female just adds to the anxiety of meeting new classmates and teachers and learning in a new environment. In the sixth grade, boys will make up 10 of the 22 total students. Boys comprise about a third of the 30 seventh-graders and there are just five eighth-grade boys.

"I'm nervous," said Tom-Millare, who will be in the seventh grade. "We'll be the only boys, but we'll have lots of possibilities."

The possibilities could be endless. The seven boys, who are all transferring from public schools, say St. Francis will offer better educational opportunities.

"I just wanted to get a better education and go on the right path," said Puule, an eighth-grader.

Added Baptiste, a seventh-grader: "It has very good academics."

Two of the most promising players for Pac-Five will be Savaiiaea, a 6-foot-1 eighth-grader, and Won, a 5-11 seventh-grader.

"(They are) probably going to have a big impact," said Pac-Five coach Fili Falefa, who coached the Manoa Paniolos Pop Warner team for five years. "They will probably be playing both sides of the ball, offense and defense."

Savaiiaea said his parents left the decision up to him on attending the Manoa school.

"They said I have to do all the work (here), not them," Savaiiaea said.

Won's father, Douglas, played for Saint Louis and Michigan State in the early 1970s. The plan was for him to graduate from his father's alma mater. Now, he's attending the school of which is mother is an alum.

"She's happy about me going to St. Francis," said Blayne, a seventh-grader. "My dad's happy that I'm playing football."

Batoon, who will coach the seven on the school's basketball team, helped spread the word about St. Francis going coed through his clinics. Though it won't field a team, St. Francis will also host for the annual Merv Lopes Classic, a preseason varsity boys basketball tournament.

Batoon's and Lopes' place in basketball lore isn't lost on some of the current players. Batoon was Lopes' assistant when the Chaminade basketball team pulled off its big upset in 1982.

"Coach Sol was at Chaminade when they beat No. 1 Virginia," said Ursua, an eighth-grader.

EXPANSION

In the fall of 2006, St. Francis added boys to its kindergarten class and this past year, boys were introduced in the first and sixth grades. Some parents have long asked for the school to become coed, making it easier for them to drop off and pick up their children who were at St. Francis and other schools. When public elementary schools began eliminating the sixth grade, it gave more reason for St. Francis, which has many applicants from area schools, to open itself to boys.

There are several all-girls private schools on O'ahu, but Maryknoll is the only Catholic school that is coed with students from kindgergarten through 12th grade.

"Our goal is simply to offer quality Catholic education and the spirit of joy to families and children out there, regardless of gender," St. Francis principal Sister Joan of Arc Souza, who added the transition to a coed school has been smooth.

The long-term goal is to gradually fill up its grade levels with boys, probably by the 2012-13 school year. Current enrollment is 380 in grades pre-kindergarten through 12, and future enrollment won't top 500.

"We like our class size to average 15 to 20 students," Souza said. "Our teachers know our students by name. If we get too large, you lose that 'ohana spirit. We pride ourselves in that."

Plans also include building a weight room and athletic offices next to the Ahuna Troubadome, the school's tent-like dome that houses a basketball court. The improvements will benefit both the male and female students.

St. Francis' girls teams have enjoyed recent success. In 2005, volleyball and softball won Division II state titles. The basketball team finished second and third at the Division II state tournaments in 2005 and 2006. The softball team won the ILH Division I title in 2007.