HS notes: Bibb County football is back; crossover pits Stratford and Westfield; another game bites the dust

          Bibb County’s public high school football teams didn’t have to wait as long as expected to find out they could play again.

          And it appears even the weather will cooperate better than projected as Hurricane Sally winds down.

          The sun is expected to start returning to Central Georgia Friday morning with kickoff temperatures in the mid-to-upper 70s when Howard, Rutland, Central, Northeast, and Westside return to game nights.

          Howard opens up at Northside, Rutland is at Luella, Northeast welcomes Therrell to Thompson, and Westside hosts Central at Ed DeFore.

          Southwest hosts Randolph-Clay next Friday at Thompson. Brunswick and Northeast will break in the renovated and upgraded Henderson next Thursday.

          Bibb County athletics director Barney Hester and assorted coaches and administrators got extensive tours of the three public high school stadiums in recent weeks, marking off six-foot increments and putting stickers down on every row at Henderson, Ed DeFore, and Thompson.

          So 900 fans will be admitted to Ed DeFore and 400 to Thompson Friday night, and 1,130 at Henderson next week.

          Not surprisingly, Friday night’s games are sellouts. Of course, not all sellouts are the same, by any stretch.

          Hester said Henderson seats 8,000, Ed DeFore 6,500, and Thompson 2,500. So they’ll hold between 14 and 16 percent of capacity until further notice.

          Procedures are in place as far as social distancing and masks.

          Masks are required for admission, and Hester said there will be regular reminders over public address systems.

          While the markers are six feet apart, Hester said that doesn’t prevent families from sitting together.

          “That’s fine,” he said. “But we’ve got the markers down where they’re six feet apart, so when a person comes in (to that row), they’ll know where the six-foot (marker) is.”

          Next week will be a test, with four home games, including Howard and Central at Henderson next Friday.

          As is the case pretty much everywhere on all levels, every week will be a learning experience. But …

          “We’re just so happy to be playing,” Hester said.

Former GISA rivals (were to) hook up (Updated Thursday, 3:30 p.m.)

          The last time Westfield and Stratford played each other in football?

          Nov. 30, 2013, at Mercer’s Five Star Stadium in the GISA Class AAA state championship game, the Eagles’ finale in that association.

          Westfield won 34-31. And that was the Hornets’ seventh straight win over the Eagles., who trail 20-14-1 in the series.

          They meet again, Friday at Marvin Arrington Stadium. (Update: A positive COVID test at Westfield led Thursday to the game being cancelled).

          Former Westfield head coach Bruce Lane called Stratford’s Mark Farriba about playing.

          “He probably realized we weren’t very good and it was a good opportunity for them,” Farriba said dryly.   

          This was long before 2020 started doing its thing, and after the GHSA had gone through reclassification and separated Class A regions into public and private.

          It eliminated power rankings, and opened up some scheduling possibilities as well as issues.

          In this case, Westfield gets a “money” opponent its fans are familiar with, and Stratford gets a game that’s an easy 40-minute ride on the interstate.

          “We play them in middle school and all that stuff,” Farriba said. ‘It just doesn’t make sense to go drive two hours somewhere instead of going down (40) minutes and we can play at Westfield.”

Add Taylor County-Pike County to the list

          Taylor County and Pike County tried to play last week, but the weather one, so they were going to give it a go this week.

          But about a half dozen Pike County players have to be quarantined for exposure to the virus, so the Vikings and Pirates won’t play Friday night.