By JEREMY SELLEW
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Low numbers have cost Monessen with three games left to play this season.
The district announced Wednesday that the Greyhounds will forfeit Friday’s scheduled game against Carmichaels due to player safety reasons.
“It’s never an easy decision,” Monessen High School principal Eric Manko said. “At the most, we were only going to dress 14 or 15 players and at the least 11 or 12. The areas most affected were the offensive and defensive lines. With those positions, having inexperienced or extremely out-of-position people could affect player safety.”
Manko said the decision was made after discussions between head coach Shane Swope, athletic director Gina Naccarato, administrators and a couple of board members.
“It was unanimous to do this from a safety standpoint,” Manko said.
Manko wouldn’t rule out other games being affected, but is hopeful the Greyhounds can play their final two games at West Greene and at California.
“We wanted to make sure to do it early so Carmichaels had the opportunity to try and find another opponent,” Manko said. “We have a couple of kids in concussion protocol, so we could have held out until Friday, but if they couldn’t play then Carmichaels wouldn’t have a chance to get another game. And with senior night scheduled, I didn’t want to have to feel obligated to play with such low numbers.”
In a statement released earlier Wednesday, Manko said senior night activities will be held at a later date during basketball season.
“I assume we’ll talk early in the week when it comes to next week’s game,” Manko said. “We want to try to play those games, unfortunately, we’re at a situation where a lot of (Class) A teams have been in the last few years whether it was because of declining numbers or injuries.”
The Greyhounds (0-4, 0-4) are scheduled to play at West Greene Oct. 16.
