Photo by Dave Anderson
On Long Island, Plainedge and Hewlett played through the snow Saturday.
Tuesday afternoon makeup football games? Wednesday night sectional playoff contests? Games in progress called midway through the fourth quarter due to Thunder Snow? Hypothermia?
That's what a weekend blizzard in late October can do to high school football schedules.
Last week's historic snowstorm in the Northeast, one that dumped as much as 32 inches in some areas and left more than 3 million homes without power, caused unprecedented havoc with prep football as well. Games that were scheduled for Saturday afternoon bore the brunt of the freakish storm, which began late Saturday morning and continued well into Saturday night and Sunday morning.
Some games were moved up to 10 a.m. kickoffs on Saturday, thus avoiding much of the storm. Others were postponed until Sunday, Monday or in one case in Connecticut, Tuesday afternoon. Because so many areas of the region were still without power on Monday morning, games scheduled for Tuesday night in the New York Section 1 semifinals playoffs were postponed until at least Wednesday.
A game between
Rye County Day (N.Y.) and
Kingswood Oxford (West Hartford, Conn.) was called with 8:19 remaining in the fourth quarter because of the combination of snow and lightning in West Hartford. The New York Section 1 Class C playoff game between
Bronxville and
Blind Brook took two days to complete.
Many, however, in the great tradition of football, simply played through it.
Photo by Dave Anderson
A Plainedge runner tries to advance.
Among them were
Warwick (N.Y.) and
Kingston (N.Y.), who began their Section 9 Class AA semifinal game at Dietz Stadium in light snow before conditions worsened markedly. Warwick got two first-quarter touchdown passes from
John Garcia and scored a 20-7 win in upstate eastern New York.
"That was the key part of the game — getting ahead," Garcia told the
Middletown Times Herald-Record. "Having the two scores early before the snow started coming down — making conditions worse — was the key factor."
Some developments took a far more serious turn, though.
Newsday reported that as many as 15 players in one Long Island game were treated for hypothermia due to the rain, snow and frigid conditions.
"We certainly are going to review our decision-making," Plainview-Old Bethpage School District Superintendent Gerard W. Dempsey Jr. told the paper after the incidents of hypothermia were reported at the district's
John F. Kennedy (Plainview, N.Y) vs.
Valley Stream Central (N.Y.) game on Saturday.
The game was called at halftime, with Valley Stream Central leading 6-0.
At least one governing body in the region, the Connecticut
Interscholastic Athletic Conference, was closed on Monday due to the
lack of power. CIAC Information Technology Director Matthew Fischer manged
to work from home, his sentiments on the subject far from rosy.
"In my opinion, this isn't good," Fischer told MaxPreps in an instant message, in so many words.
The sentiments of millions, to be sure.
For the complete photo gallery of the Plainedge vs. Hewlett game that was played in heavy snow on Long Island, please go
here.Jim Stout is the CBS MaxPreps Media Manager for the Eastern U.S. He may be reached at 845-367-2864 or at jim.stout@cbsinteractive.com.