Five games in the opening week of the season have been canceled because of teams dealing with COVID-19 issues.
With five games canceled because of COVID-19 heading into the first weekend of the high school football season, teams are having to adjust to bumps on the road back to normal. The canceled games are Hermon at Cape Elizabeth, Maine Central Institute at Leavitt, Stearns/Schenck at Mount View, Oak Hill at John Bapst and Maranacook at Mountain Valley. “It’s a tough situation, but we can only control what we can control,” said Cape Elizabeth Coach Sean Green. His team learned Wednesday afternoon that Hermon would be unable to play after players tested positive for COVID-19. Other members of the Hermon team are quarantining because of contact tracing. The cancellations come as the state is seeing its biggest surge in COVID-19 cases since January. On Thursday, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 624 new cases of COVID-19 and three deaths. The state’s standard operating procedure for schools calls for unvaccinated close contacts to quarantine for 10 days. Students who are fully vaccinated are not required to quarantine. Green estimated that “nearly 100 percent” of the Cape Elizabeth team is vaccinated. “It’s a personal decision (to get vaccinated), but with the way (the state) is doing things this year, it’s the easiest thing you can do to ensure you can compete,” he said. Oak Hill Coach Chad Stowell learned Wednesday that John Bapst is unable to play Friday’s scheduled game. Stowell said he knows a few of his own players are vaccinated, but it’s not an issue he will bring up to the team even in light of the cancellation – because he doesn’t want families to feel that vaccination is a requirement for team membership. Stowell noted that he and his family are vaccinated.
