Multiple Week 1 WPIAL football matchups called off in Beaver County

Beaver County Times - 9/1/2021

Sep. 2—BEAVER — The Beaver Area High School Athletic Department has announced that Friday's football game against Central Valley has been cancelled due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the program.

"Unfortunately, we're just experiencing multiple cases of COVID-19 on the varsity football team," Beaver Area Athletic Director Alan Alcalde tells the Beaver County Times. "After further review with our administration and our head coach, we determined it would be best to just cancel this game at this moment."

"We discussed this a little bit in the morning but they had to do their complete investigation," Central Valley Athletic Director Sam Cercone said. "Alan gave me a call again later this afternoon and gave me the news."

Alcalde was not able to say how many players on Beaver's roster have tested positive for COVID-19. As of now, the Friday's football game at Central Valley is the only Beaver Area athletic contest that has been canceled.

However, Alcalde says there is always a chance other cancelations could take place.

"We certainly hope that it doesn't [lead to more cancelations], "Alcalde said. "As you know, anything can happen with the climate that we're in. We're hopeful that it doesn't but we don't know."

Beaver Area athletics hasn't entertained the idea of rescheduling the contest, due to it being a non-conference game. Central Valley on the other hand tells the Times that it is actively looking for a new opponent to play this week.

"We're in the hunt of trying to find some teams to play," Cercone said. "Obviously, pickings are slim. It's Wednesday but we're trying; we've got some feelers out there. We're going to hopefully know more this early evening."

Hopewell calls off Week 1 matchup against Blackhawk

Just hours after the news of Beaver's cancelation was announced, Hopewell Athletics informed the Beaver County Times that its Week 1 matchup against Blackhawk has also been canceled.

Unlike Beaver's cancelation which was strictly related to COVID-19 outbreaks, Hopewell Athletic Director Don Short tells the Times that there were multiple reasons behind the Vikings calling off their Week 1 game.

In Week 0, Hopewell had numerous players sustain injuries in its 62-0 loss against North Catholic. This week, a few other players on Hopewell's roster were sidelined due to COVID-19 contact tracing.

Dealing with a small roster to begin with, Short tells the Times that the district felt the best decision for the program and its players was to hold off from playing Blackhawk on Friday night.

Contact Noah Hiles at nhiles@gannett.com. Follow him on twitter @_NoahHiles.

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