West Greene-California football game postponed over covid-19 concerns

By: Chris Harlan
Wednesday, September 16, 2020 | 8:56 PM

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Covid-19 concerns caused West Greene to postpone Friday’s football game against California.

The positive case was unrelated to West Greene’s football team, coach Brian Hanson said, but the situation led administrators to shut down the school building for a few days out of caution. The Pioneers were scheduled to visit California for a key Tri-County South matchup in Class A.

“We haven’t had any incident with the football team or any of our sports teams,” Hanson said. “One person randomly tested positive, so they’re taking precautions.”

Hanson said he’s optimistic the California game can be rescheduled, even if that would require two games in one week. His team experienced that last season, scheduling a Week Zero opener on a Monday and its Week 1 game on a Friday of the same week.

“I’m not opposed to that,” Hanson said.

The Tri-County South is an eight-team conference, so there are no nonconference games on either team’s seven-game schedule. The WPIAL has said games canceled because of covid-19 will be counted as “no contest” rather than a forfeit, but both coaches hope to avoid that outcome.

“I was really looking forward to this West Greene game,” California coach Ed Woods said.

Hanson said he expects West Greene will return to action Sept. 24 at Avella for a Thursday game. California visits Mapletown on Sept. 25.

A year ago, West Greene defeated California in the regular season to win the conference title by one game. Woods isn’t sure how they’ll manage it, but said he’d like to see the game rescheduled.

“I sure hope so,” Woods said.

Both teams started their seasons with wins last week. California defeated Bentworth, 27-7. West Greene defeated Mapletown, 43-8.

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

Tags: California, West Greene