Warriors game in Sinclairville postponed

Cassadaga Valley football fans will have to wait for another day to host a football game as the Falconer/Cassadaga Valley/Maple Grove football team has entered COVID-19 quarantine.

With only one-third of the Golden Cougars football team eligible to play in today’s game against Salamanca, Section VI announced that the game would not be played today.

In a joint statement from the district offices of the Falconer, Cassadaga Valley and Bemus Point school districts, the schools’ websites noted a student-athlete tested positive for COVID-19.

“This student is a member of the varsity football team and as a result all non-vaccinated players on our merged football team are quarantined and unable to play in (today’s) football game previously scheduled to take place at Cassadaga Valley. The number of student-athletes from this merged team who are fully vaccinated is not enough to field a team and therefore tomorrow’s game is being postponed,” the statement read.

The mandatory quarantine not only impacts Saturday’s game, but it would also interfere with next week’s game against Allegany-Limestone.

“As far as I know they must quarantine until Oct. 1,” said Falconer/Cassadaga Valley/Maple Grove head coach Dan Greco. “There is a game on Oct. 1, we are currently looking to see if that game can be moved to Oct. 2.”

As of now the hope is that the game will be played on another date, throwing yet another wrench into scheduling. Greco pointed out the path to fitting in games, using the Fredonia and Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton postponed game as an example.

“As of now there is no word on whether the game will be moved,” said Greco. “Similar to Fredonia and Chautauqua Lake/Westfield/Brocton, we could play on a Friday, Tuesday then Saturday — that would give them the necessary rest time. But I’m not sure if they will be arranging that for us.”

Quarantine has not gotten the Golden Cougars’ mind off of football as the players available will try to practice and everyone will still be able to watch film.

“Depending on who is available and what position they play we should be able to run some drills and everyone will still be watching film,” added Greco.

The Golden Cougars were riding a lot of momentum coming into this week with back-to-back impressive shutouts and the game was the only one scheduled to be played in Sinclairville. Salamanca would have set the table for an entertaining game at Cassadaga Valley as the Warriors have yet to lose a game with three blowout wins.

CHRISTIAN STORMS, ObserverToday.com

https://www.observertoday.com/sports/local-sports/2021/09/football-game-in-sinclairville-postponed/