Ridgeland, Lafayette games among several around state canceled
Ridgeland’s Region 7-AAAA football contest at Northwest Whitfield, scheduled for this past Friday night, was been canceled.
A post on the official Ridgeland High School Facebook page this past Thursday read as follows:
“Due to the surge of COVID-19 cases in north Georgia over the past two weeks, along with the need to quarantine those who’ve been exposed through direct contact, the region football game between Ridgeland and Northwest Whitfield, scheduled for tomorrow night (Nov. 13) at 7:30 p.m., has been canceled.”
Last Tuesday, Lafayette elected to cancel its Region 6-AAA game at Rockmart on Friday night for similar reasons, citing a desire to do what was in the best interests of both schools.
“The Lafayette Football team has canceled our game against Rockmart for November 13, 2020,” said a statement on the school’s website last week. “This is due to multiple players being unable to participate at this time. Unfortunately, this comes at the end of our 2020 football season and the game will not be able to be rescheduled.”
The team confirmed that while they did not have any players with active cases, there were players under quarantine because of close contact.
The two games were among close to 20 around the state that were canceled because of COVID-19 concerns.
The final night of the regular season is this Friday, Nov. 20 with Ridgeland slated to play at Central-carroll and Lafayette scheduled to travel to North Murray. The
GHSA deadline to complete all regular season games in Saturday, Nov. 21.
According to the GHSA, games canceled due to COVID-19 are considered “no-contests” and not forfeits on team’s official records. However, for the purpose of determining the seeding for its state playoff teams, each region can declare an unofficial loss for teams that had to cancel a region game, if the game is not able to be made up prior to the start of the playoffs.
Once the state playoffs start, a team having to cancel a game due to COVID-19 issues will forfeit the game and its season will end with the opposing team receiving the forfeit victory and advancing to the next round.
Thanksgiving Classic called off
Ridgeland’s basketball teams also announced this past Thursday that their annual Thanksgiving Classic, which was slated to begin this Saturday, Nov. 21, is being canceled for this season.
This year’s Classic was to have seen teams from Gordon Lee, Coahulla Creek,
Heritage, Northwest Whitfield, Murray County, North Sand Mountain (Ala.), Signal Mountain (Tenn.), Ringgold, Hixson (Tenn.) and host Ridgeland square off in 11 different girls’ games and 11 different boys’ games on Nov. 21, 23, 24 and 25.
However, as of Thursday, Nov. 12, four games are still on the docket.
Ridgeland’s girls will take on Ringgold at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 23, while the Ridgeland and Ringgold boys will face off at 8:30. Then, on Wednesday, Nov. 25, Ridgeland will host Hixson in games at 1 (girls) and 2:30 (boys).