Eagles 2 - Orange Lutheran 0
Santa Margarita-Orange Lutheran football game canceled because of positive COVID-19 test
SANTA ANA, CA., April 3, 2020 – Orange Lutheran on Wednesday forfeited this week’s varsity football game against Santa Margarita because of a positive COVID-19 test within its football program.
The Trinity League game would have been played Saturday at Santa Ana Stadium. Also canceled was the Orange Lutheran-Santa Margarita junior varsity game that was scheduled for Thursday.
High school football teams no longer are required to have players and coaches undergo COVID-19 testing before they can play games. Orange Lutheran coach J.P. Presley said COVID-19 testing was not part of the football program’s preparations this week or last week. He declined to discus what prompted the Orange Lutheran player to undergo an outside-of-school COVID-19 test, citing privacy protocols.
Presley said it was difficult to tell the players, who waited for months for the coronavirus-delayed season to come, that the game against Santa Margarita had been canceled.
“I just now had one of the toughest team meetings, with all they’ve gone through … getting pushed down, going forward, then going back,” Presley said. “We were all excited to play this game on Saturday.”
Canceling the game, Presley said, was the correct decision.
“To keep our kids safe and Santa Margarita safe, this is the best choice at this time,” he said.
Four other games scheduled for this week were also canceled, but those were because teams had injury-depleted rosters. Costa Mesa, Northwood, University and Woodbridge opted not to play because they did not have enough healthy players.
The canceled games were: Costa Mesa vs. Orange, Beckman vs. University, Portola vs. Northwood and Irvine vs. Woodbridge.
Instead, Orange will play Millikan at El Modena High on Thursday, Portola will host Beckman on Friday, and Irvine will be at home against Inglewood on Friday.
Santa Margarita on Wednesday was attempting find an opponent to replace Orange Lutheran.
Presley on Wednesday did not know the status of Orange Lutheran’s upcoming games against St. John Bosco on April 9 and JSerra on April 16, the final day of the 2021 spring season.
“Right now,” he said, “we’re still just getting the information, the contact tracing all that across the board. We should have a definitive answer in the next 48 hours.”
Orange Lutheran is 0-2. The games were league losses to Servite and Mater Dei. Santa Margarita is 2-1, with a non-league win over Mayfair, a league win over JSerra and a league loss to St. John Bosco.
The first week of the spring football season, there were two local games — La Habra-Mission Viejo and El Toro-Troy — that were canceled for COVID-19-related reasons.
By Steve Fryer
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
The Orange County Register
