ECHS Football Suspended For Next Three Weeks: One Positive Player

Darren Doyle, story:
Edmonson County High School Principal Jonathan Williams told the Edmonson Voice today that the school has made the decision to suspend football games for the next three weeks due to one positive COVID case on the team.

"We want to be totally transparent with the community," Williams said. "This is a school decision and the safety of our students is our number one priority."

Williams said this isn't an outbreak across the team as of now, but only one case that will force several players to quarantine and shutting down the program for now is the best decision for health reasons.

"We've only had three positive confirmed cases in our school since in-person sessions began," he said. "Other schools have not been so fortunate."

Williams said that one additional positive case outside of football was also confirmed and those affected have been contacted through contact tracing.

"If you haven't been contacted then you are not affected at this time," he said. 

The Wildcats will not play their next three games during this period, which is Clinton County at home tomorrow night, Barren County at home on October 30th, and the final regular season game of the season on the road at Butler County on November 6th. The next scheduled game will be the first round of the playoffs on November 13th.

Through social media outlets, ECHS Athletic Director Kyle Pierce said that the team is hopeful to be back in action as soon as possible.

"This is not a total program suspension, but it appears to be more of a varsity postponement of games & hopefully as few varsity players on quarantine," he said. "But until the contact tracers do their work, we will have to wait."

Williams also discussed a case involving a football player a couple weeks ago.

"We had a JV football player test positive earlier in the season but it only forced a few varsity players to quarantine," he said. "In this case, too many varsity players are affected and we're not going to put our JV players in positions were they suddenly have to play at the varsity level with little or no experience."