PHS football game canceled

Granite Hills also not playing — for now

In the new COVID world when it comes to trying to schedule high school football games, Porterville High athletic director Brian Hill put it this way: “It’s day by day.”

Actually it’s become a situation in which it’s half hour by half hour. “Everything literally changes by every half hour,” Granite Hills athletic director Bud Luther said.

Porterville High has had to cancel its scheduled football game at Roosevelt, which was scheduled for this Friday night.

Porterville Unified School District public information officer Jason Pommier confirmed one PHS player tested positive for COVID-19 through contact tracing, so to follow COVID protocols, Friday’s game was canceled.

Granite Hills has also been affected as it was supposed to play its home opener against Kern Valley this Friday at Rankin Stadium. But Kern Valley is unable to play because it has had a COVID case.

Kern Valley’s cancellation set off a sequence in which Luther has been trying to reschedule another opponent for Friday. Originally, Roosevelt, which lost the game against PHS, was going to come to Porterville to play Granite Hills.

But Roosevelt has opted instead to play at Sanger even though that game is still up in the air depending on the availability of officials.

As of Wednesday Granite was trying to schedule a game with Sierra. Granite Hills would play Sierra in a game that would likely begin between 8:30 and 9 p.m. at the earliest.

Bishop Union is coming to play Farmersville at 6 p.m. Friday. The officials who will work that game would immediately come to Granite Hills to work the Sierra-granite game if it’s played, Luther said.

But as of Wednesday Sierra was still checking on if it could travel to Porterville, Luther said. There’s a possibility Granite could also go to Sierra, but as of now Sierra has no available officials.

And Luther has also asked Minarets if it was interested in a game on Friday. But after all that the status as of Wednesday was this: “Right now there’s no game,” Luther said.

Granite Hills opened the season last week with a 14-8 loss at Orange Cove.

“We are not playing this week but we hope we’re able to play next week if we can find a game and if there are no more setbacks,” said Hill about the status of PHS football.

PHS opened the season last week with a 13-6 win against North at Rankin Stadium. The Panthers had originally scheduled September 3 as a bye week, but are now looking to fill that date with a game. “We’re going to pick up a game,” Hill said.

“With all the cancellations that are going on, I’m hopeful we’ll get one,” said Hill about picking up a game for the weekend of September 3 based on the number of cancellations that are happening.

Hill said he knows the cancellation of the game will cause frustration but added the safety of the players comes first. “That’s our No. 1 priority is the health and safety of the kids,” he said.

He also gave a great deal of credit to the Porterville Unified School District’s medical staff for keeping athletes as safe as possible. “Our nurses are doing a great job,” Hill said.