Fitchburg, Leominster football game called off
Game canceled after a positive COVID-19 test
Friday night’s scheduled 139th gridiron meeting between Fitchburg and Leominster has been called off due to a positive COVID test with a Blue Devil player, officials said Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday night’s Chicken Bowl tilt between the junior varsity squads of the Red Raiders and Blue Devils will take place at Historic Doyle Field as originally scheduled.
Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m.
“We had a positive test on the team,” Leominster head coach Devin Gates said through text message on Wednesday. “( The virus was) not transmitted through team activities.”
Gates said the varsity football team, which practices separate from the junior varsity, has suspended team activities including practice until further notice, pending guidance from school health officials. The Blue Devils next scheduled game is next Friday, April 2, at Shrewsbury.
Fitchburg athletic director Craig Antocci noted the Red Raiders — which has yet to play in this makeshift Fall II season — will now play Hingham, which had suddenly freed its weekend plans Wednesday morning after Duxbury called off its Patriot League game with the Harbormen following allegations of anti-Semitic play-calling in its football program earlier this month.
FHS will play at Hingham on Friday at 5:30 p.m.
It is unknown as of Wednesday if the game will be re-scheduled; Leominster (0-1) has an off week slated for the weekend of
April 23, but fitchburg is slated to play at oakmont regional that weekend, the final weekend of fall ii ahead of the spring season, which begins april 25.
With the 2020 spring season wiped out completely due to the pandemic, coaches in both communities understandably do not wish to have their season pushed back by a week in order to accommodate football.
If the game is not rescheduled, it will be the first football season since 1923 that the rivalry contest is not played.
In that year, the game was called off following a scuffle between the two schools in the previous basketball season, where fitchburg’s ervin beach had delivered a hard elbow to leominster’s red barrett’s mouth, causing tooth loss.
The incident occurred after barrett had delivered a number of elbows to the red raiders player during the contest.
Fitchburg-leominster is not the only game this weekend affected by covid protocols.
Monty tech was slated to play bay path at oakmont regional’s arthur i. hurd memorial field saturday morning, but bay path entered the protocols late last week, forcing a cancellation. the bulldogs will pay david prouty at tantasqua regional in sturbridge next weekend.
Clinton also entered the protocols earlier last week, and the gaels will play at st. bernard’s on saturday evening at 6 p.m. instead of friday night.
“(clinton) went through the protocols,” st. b’s coach tom bingham said wednesday, “and we moved it a day to give them some time.”
The remainder of friday’s schedule in north central mass.:
Murdock at lunenburg, 5 p.m.
Oakmont at tantasqua, 5:30 p.m.
Grafton at north middlesex, 4 p.m.
Westboro at nashoba, 5 p.m.