Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. has a motto, “Save the Season,” and it is hoping fans will help make that happen.
BCSC and the Bartholomew County Health Department have limited tickets for Saturday’s Columbus East and Columbus North home football scrimmages to 250 fans. If those fans are diligent with social distancing themselves, the corporation may look at allowing 250 per side for next week’s regular-season openers.
“We are going to look at the scrimmages as, ‘Do people social distance as we ask them to do?’” BCSC assistant superintendent Bill Jensen said. “It’s going to be really how things go with the seating to determine how things will be with the regular season the week after. That’s an important piece. I know the athletic directors are hoping to learn a lot from Saturday and see how things go.”
East is set to host Martinsville at 10 a.m. Saturday, and North will host Greenwood at 7 p.m. Saturday in the scrimmages. Both will be at home for regular-season openers on Aug. 21, East against Whiteland and North against Gibson Southern.
“It’s learning a whole different behavior,” Jensen said. “We’re kind of using a theme of everybody has to do their part to save the season. We’re going to be asking fans, players, concession workers, everybody to do their part to help save the season.”
East and Martinsville will have a varsity scrimmage at 10 a.m., followed by a freshman scrimmage at 12:30 p.m. The roughly 100 varsity, JV and freshman players will be able to go to the athletics office and purchase two tickets apiece. Senior players then will have the first right of coming back and buying additional tickets. If 250 tickets haven’t been sold, the remainder will be on sale to the public for $6, first-come-first-serve, in the athletics office on Friday.
North started selling presale tickets for its scrimmage to football families on Monday. If any are left over, they will be sold to the public from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and Friday in the athletics office. North will not sell tickets at the gate, regardless of whether all 250 have been sold.
Meanwhile, the Covenant Christian at Edinburgh scrimmage that was scheduled for Saturday has been canceled. The Lancers currently are down to 13 available players, but hope to be able to play next week’s season opener against Indianapolis Tindley.
“We have kids in quarantine right now, and we just don’t have enough linemen to play a scrimmage,” Edinburgh athletics director David Walden said.
In other scrimmages, Jennings County will visit Brownstown Central at 7 p.m. Friday, and Brown County will visit Monrovia at 7 p.m. Saturday.
South Decatur’s home scrimmage against Union County has been moved from Friday to 11 a.m. Saturday. The Cougars have been approved for 750 fans to attend, although that number includes players, coaches, other school personnel and officials.
Soccer to begin season at Wigh
The home boys and girls soccer games for Columbus East and Columbus North will be played at the Wigh Complex for at least the first three weeks of the season.
Brett Boezeman, director of operations for BCSC, said they are looking at a mid-September opening for the new BCSC Soccer Complex, which is located just north of the practice fields at the Wigh Complex.
The defending regional champion East boys open the season Monday at home against Floyd Central. Both the varsity and JV games will be played at 6 p.m.
The East girls open at home against Bloomington North at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
The North girls, which play at Brebeuf Jesuit on Saturday and at Center Grove on Monday, play their home opener at 11:30 a.m. Aug. 22 against Seymour. The North boys, which play at Southport on Saturday and at Bloomington North on Thursday, have their home opener at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 22 against Avon.
East-Seymour volleyball rescheduled
Columbus East has rescheduled its volleyball game at Seymour for Sept. 21.
The Olympians and Owls were scheduled to play on Aug. 25, but Seymour is in quarantine until after that. The Owls also were to host Columbus North on Tuesday, and that game has not yet been rescheduled.
Also, the Cathedral Invitational that East was supposed to play in on Sept. 26 has been canceled.
Ted Schultz is sports editor for The Republic. He can be reached at tschultz@therepublic.com or 812-379-5628.
