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MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI – Holton Public Schools cancelled its remaining varsity football games for the season.
The school district announced Friday, Sept.1 3 on Facebook that all varsity West Michigan Conference (WMC) games are cancelled due to a “low number of varsity football players, ongoing injuries and player safety.”
“This difficult decision was made after careful consideration and we know the impact this has on our players, coaches, families and community,” the Facebook post said. “We all want to see a strong Red Devil Varsity Football program. Ultimately, to make that happen we have to also protect player development, prevent injury and work to increase participation.”
The program has dealt with low participation numbers the past three seasons. Officials previously announced Wednesday, Sept. 11, the scheduled home game this week against Ravenna was being forfeited due to a lack of available players. Several starters on the team suffered injuries, leaving them inactive for the West Michigan Conference Rivers Division contest.
RELATED: Holton football cancels game against Ravenna due to dwindling roster numbers
“Unfortunately, we’ve had a few players step away from the team recently and then we had some key injuries occur during last week’s game against Hesperia,” third-year Holton head coach Tommy Moore told MLive earlier this week. “We were already a little bit on the younger side as far as our roster construction and had to pull up all of our sophomores from the JV level heading into Week 1.
Moore said they have been working “really hard” to establish the program the correct way. He said they were sitting around 13 healthy students available to play but would probably have to pull up freshmen if they wanted to field a full team this week but wasn’t comfortable doing that.
“The last thing I want to do is throw our young kids to the wolves and stunt their growth and have them lose the passion that it takes to play this sport,” he said.
Two varsity non-conference games are still on the schedule. Holton’s varsity team will play Atherton on Friday, Sept. 27 and White Cloud on Friday, Oct. 25.
Since both of these schools have combined JV/varsity teams, Holton will be able to have all high school players available to play for those games. The JV football team will play their conference games as scheduled.
School officials said ending the conference season will also affect Homecoming Week, which has been rescheduled for Sept. 23-27.
With the rescheduling of Homecoming Week, the homecoming dance will take place on Saturday, Sept. 28. Other events include the homecoming parade, alumni tent, class of 1974 recognition, crowning of the Homecoming Court and the results of the school spirit competition.
The Powder Puff Football Game, scheduled for this Sunday, Sept. 15, will carry on as scheduled.
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