BOISE, Idaho — Less than one week before their scheduled game against Homedale, the Bishop Kelly High School board of directors decided to cancel the Knights' trip to Owyhee County Friday night. The news coming as a surprise to some players and coaches.
"We just felt like there was the risk of exposure, the reward wasn't worth the risk," Bishop Kelly athletic director Tom Shanahan said. "Now don't get me wrong, we wanted to play, we just felt like next with a more controlled environment where we can implement our COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines, it would give us a better chance to line up with our vision, mission of our school."
The decision applies to all fall sports: volleyball, football, soccer, and swimming.
"We think of everything we do in terms of risk and how does that risk balance with the goals and missions of our school and right now, our priority first and foremost is trying to keep our students in-person learning," Shanahan said. "We just felt like we would give it one more week and then hopefully be ready to go with our season next week."
Currently, Boise remains in the 'red' category, meaning there is substantial community spread. Owyhee County, about 40 miles away, is in the 'orange' category, meaning there are indications of medium risk of community spread.
The Trojans played their first game at home on Thursday, August 27 at home against Emmett. Fans were allowed in attendance, and masks were required but not mandated. Shanahan says Bishop Kelly will implement a mask mandate at their next game at home on Friday, September 11.
"It depends right now on what the CDH will tell us. We meet week to week," he said. "I would say right now we're going to give every effort and we're going to exhaust every possibility to have our teams back and running next week."
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