Eagle County School announced on Monday that most of Eagle Valley High School’s football teams need to be quarantined for COVID-19 and the Devil’s will postpone the first two games of the season.

Therefore, the opening round of Saturday, the annual Donnybrook in Battle Mountain’s Eagle Valley, will be postponed. The Devil’s Week 2 Contest, a home game with Summit County, has also been postponed.

Tom Lafranboise, athletic director at Eagle Valley, said: “That’s my hope. As an athletic director, I want you to play as many games as you can, but your health is first.”

According to LaFramboise, Eagle Valley football was a regular practice on Friday. On Saturday, according to the team’s Facebook page, the team had a scrimmage within the team. On Sundays, rules of the Colorado High School Activities Association do not allow contact between coaches and athletes.

By Monday, it was revealed that the virus had made it feel its presence.

This is a kick for anyone locally involved in the long start and stop process for playing football in the fall. Initially, CHSAA postponed football until Spring Season C, and football began on March 4.

Later, Governor Jared Polis and CHSAA broke the idea of ​​resuming football, but the latter denied it. That disappointment led to the second round of negotiations to create seven game schedules for teams that chose to play in the fall. All three local teams, Battle Mountain, Eagle Valley and Vail Christian, chose the fall option.

According to athletic director Gentry Nixon, Battle Mountain football lacks an opponent in the first week, but is on track in a healthy camp. The same is true for Bale Christians via Tim Pearson.

“Children will be beaten up. The whole thing stinks,” said La Franboise, a football coach in both Norwood and Eagle Valley. “My heart goes out of them. They are frustrated and angry, I understand, but we need to keep people healthy.”

Bale Christians are still planning to play at Dove Creek on Saturday to open the season.

Eagle Valley, on the other hand, must pass the COVID-19 protocol.

According to LaFramboise, affected people must be quarantined at home for 14 days and be asymptomatic before returning to campus. Quarantined individuals cannot attend school via the Internet and participate in extracurricular activities, or football, directly.

When do they play?

While everyone puts health first, the problem is that Eagle Valley and Battle Mountain play football games.

The obvious solution to this conundrum is the “6 + 1” scheduling format issued by CHSAA. In addition to the six regular season games, the team will play a playoff game with eight fields through the Rating Percentage Index, or play a seventh game with another non-postseason team.

The “Plus 1” seems to have been tailored to the Devil’s and Huskys, except that the season has just begun and all teams in the state, including Eagle Valley and Battle Mountain, think they’re going to the playoffs.

Therefore, La Framboise and Nixon haven’t come up with that option yet. Both said they promised to participate in rival games regardless of the post-season scenario.

How about Huskys now?

Battle Mountain Soccer is not an ideal scenario, with a farewell week in the first week.

Nixon said this week it would send an email to CHSAA members looking for a Huskys match.

“I’m aggressively putting it into CHSAA and finding another game,” Nixon said. “It’s the first week. I want the kids to cheer up. I understand that there are other teams in a similar situation to us. Tomorrow, everyone from (class) 2A to 5A. Send a large number of emails to. “