In the merry-go-round that is the 2020 high school football season, Fort Mill has been thrown for a loop twice in one week.

For the second time in less than a week, the Fort Mill football team’s schedule game got canceled due to COVID-19, or at least that was the initial thought. Originally, the Jackets (0-4) was supposed to play Gaffney as their last Region 3-5A opponent Friday, but Gaffney had COVID-19 related issues thus their game got canceled. There has yet to be a make-up date scheduled for that game.

Fort Mill was then able to fill the vacancy in their schedule with the Manning Monarchs this past Monday. Fast forward to Thursday morning, Fort Mill athletic director Dwayne Hartsoe sends out a tweet saying the game against Manning has been canceled because of a COVID-19 issue within the Manning athletic department.

Now here is where things get weird. Hartsoe’s tweet was posted at 9:10 a.m. Four minutes later at 9:14 a.m. unbeknownst to most, the Newberry Observer tweets out a story that Mid-Carolina High School’s game against Fairfield Central has been canceled due to COVID-19 issues at Fairfield Central and instead they will be playing – that’s right, the Manning Monarchs.

Manning Athletic Director and head football coach Reggie Kennedy did reach out to Hartsoe and told him there was COVID-19 issues within the athletic department, but not necessarily with the football team. However, he added that “his (Kennedy) administration told him he could not travel this far (to Fort Mill) with those kids on a bus,” according to Hartsoe.

Kennedy didn’t reply to text messages or return phone calls Thursday evening to Fort Mill Prep Sports regarding the situation.

Manning High is 1 hour, 48 minutes to Mid-Carolina, while it is 2 hours, 13 minutes to Bob Jones Stadium on the campus of Fort Mill, roughly a 25-minute difference if one was to go the shortest route for each trip, according to Google Maps.  

Fort Mill is now without a game this Friday and as of now are scheduled to play Catawba Ridge at home Friday, Oct. 30 for their next game.

Nation Ford is also idle this week as they weren’t able to find an opponent to replace their schedule game against Clover. Clover is on a two-week quarantine because they played Gaffney last week. Nation Ford is scheduled to play Indian Land at home Oct. 30 next week and then at Clover the week after that Nov. 6.

That leaves Catawba Ridge as the only team playing locally this week as they travel to Chester this week to play in a non-region game.

Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep