Battle Mountain Football Team Quits

Recently Battle Mountain’s Football Team unsurprisingly quit for the season. They decided to forfeit their remaining varsity games for the season due to many reasons. They expected to have 14 varsity players returning this season, but only half of those showed due to “non-football” related issues. Throughout the season, there was an immense amount of injuries leaving them with very few players to play. Because of that they would call JV members to play which was always an unfair game and usually ended in them losing to their mature opponents. The injuries have been so bad this year their coach said that if you add up the concussions and injuries from the last 4 years, they would equal the amount they have had this year. The administrators, coaches, and players met last Tuesday to discuss what to do moving forward. The first option was to play a hybrid schedule where they combine their junior varsity and varsity team. The other option was to cancel the junior varsity games and just play out the varsity schedule with their present roster. After a long discussion the majority voted on forfeiting the varsity games and continuing the hybrid schedule.

Gregg Hawkins, the Athletic Director at Palisade said, “Ultimately the reason they forfeited was a concern for safety. They only had 4-6 seniors left on the team. I think it was the best decision for them. It’s frustrating for the rest of the teams that are on their schedule because it happened so late, but I think that it wasn’t a quick decision, and it was very well-thought out.

Clearly this was a tough decision for Battle Mountain to make, and we wish them the best of luck with their choice.