Jay scrambling to find opponent

Jay County has to scramble to find an opponent again.

The Jay County High School football team is without a week nine opponent as the Heritage Patriots had their program shut down because of COVID-19.

“I got a call from (Heritage athletics director Tim Burton) yesterday right after school,” JCHS athletics director Steve Boozier said. “I sent an email out searching for a game. “It’s similar to week three but on shorter notice.”

Heritage coach Casey Kolkman said on his “Sons of Liberty” podcast, which was released today, he had to inform his team Thursday night it had to cancel tonight’s contest with Prairie Heights — which was added to the schedule after Southern Wells announced before the season started it would not field a varsity football team — as well as the Oct. 16 matchup against Jay County.

“Obviously last night was tough,” he said. “There were some tears shed by myself. It was hard looking at some of the boys, especially the seniors.

“The hard one is next week being homecoming and senior night. Some things are lost, but I told the boys last night when you spend your life giving advice and counseling people, sometimes you have to take that advice.”

Heritage will quarantine until Oct. 20, then prepare for its sectional opener against Norwell four days later.

Boozier said this afternoon he is nearing an agreement to reschedule the junior varsity game set for Oct. 17, but a replacement for the varsity contest is still up in the air.

“There might be a couple things shake lose,” he said, noting the Adams Central and Bluffton game scheduled for this evening will not be played, and if the Jets are not able to play its game next week against Woodlan, Jay County could perhaps play the Warriors for a second time this season. (Woodlan defeated Jay County 22-20 back on Sept. 25.)

Patriot coach Tim Millspaugh, whose team hosts the Lapel Bulldogs in the final regular season home game, informed his squad after practice Thursday of the situation at Heritage.

“It’s a bummer,” he said. “It’s a conference game and obviously we have the traveling trophy for the game.”

Jay County and Heritage play for the Patriot Trophy.

“That’s disappointing the game won’t happen,” Millspaugh continued. “We obviously want to find an opponent and be able to play but it definitely makes things challenging.”

This is the second time Jay County has had to find an opponent other than the team was originally scheduled.

Once Southern Wells left the entirety of the Allen County Athletic Conference scrambling to fill their respective schedules — South Adams still does not have a week nine opponent — Jay County picked up a game against Seeger, a school near the Illinois border. Jay County lost that game, 41-0.

“Whatever we can get that’s reasonable, we’ll take it,” Boozier said.