Gustav’s effects felt on the gridiron

Published 12:00 am Thursday, September 4, 2008

NATCHEZ — Thanks to the destruction and power outages that Hurricane Gustav brought to the Miss-Lou, Friday night’s area football schedule has been jumbled up.

Some schools are playing as scheduled while others have canceled their games and others have moved their games back a day.

Two games that were scheduled for Friday night have been canceled. Natchez High was supposed to travel to Gulfport to take on the Admirals and Vidalia was supposed to open up its season at Block. However, neither of those games will take place and since neither of them were district games, they will not be made up.

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“We have been out of school all week and they have some displaced kids,” Natchez High coach Lance Reed said. “(Gulfport) contacted me to see where we were and we wanted to see if the weather would get any better. (Gulfport coach Mike Justice) felt like they were in a bad situation because they had some kids who (evacuated) and weren’t back yet, so we decided to cancel it.”

Reed said that his team, which is coming off a 42-14 win over Jefferson County in last week’s season opener, will have to adjust to the unplanned off week.

“You can’t control Mother Nature,” Reed said. “There’s more serious things going on than whether we play Gulfport on Friday. When we get to practice, we’ll adjust and get ready for next week (at home against Wilkinson County).”

Vidalia coach Dee Faircloth said that Jonesville was in just too bad of shape for the Vikings to travel and play Block.

“They are in pretty bad shape,” Faircloth said. “They still don’t have any power and are under a boil-water notice and they’re basically flooded out. Neither of us have been able to practice this week so we decided to cancel it. The game won’t be made up.”

While those two games have been canceled, two others have been moved to Saturday afternoon.

Adams County Christian will play at Centreville Academy at 3 p.m. Saturday while Huntington will play at Trinity Episcopal at 5 p.m. Saturday.

Huntington coach Chad Harkins said he spoke with Trinity coach David King and the two agreed it would be best to push the game back a day.

“We don’t have any power or water and our sewage is backed up,” Harkins said. “We’re having our first practice of the week (Wednesday). We’re just trying to do what we can to get the game played.”

King said he was more than happy to move the game back a day in order to help Huntington out.

“We did that in respect to Huntington,” King said. “They’ve had a tough go at it. They’re trying to get their players organized and have had more damage. We’ve got a lot of friends at Huntington and we thought it would be more fair to them to back the game up a day.”

ACCS coach Paul Hayles said moving the Rebels game against Centreville to Saturday afternoon will be a big help to fans and players.

“There is supposed to be power by that time, but it will let the families that don’t have power get back to their homes before dark,” Hayles said. “I spoke with (Centreville coach Bill Hurst) and we thought that would be best for everyone involved.”

The two Wilkinson County schools have not made decisions on their games yet. Wilkinson County High is supposed to travel to play Newton, but WCHS coach Elbert Lyles said a decision would be made this morning on whether to play.

Wilkinson County Christian coach Sam Byrd IV said he would have to wait until power was restored to the school and then inspect the field to see if it is playable. A decision on that game should be made today at the latest.

There are four games that will be played as regularly scheduled. Cathedral will travel to play Salem High, which is about seven miles north of Tylertown while Ferriday will play at Madison High, which is in Tallulah.

Also unaffected is Jefferson County, which plays at Port Gibson and Franklin County, which plays at McComb.