In such times of uncertainty, the Eads Eagles had considered themselves lucky to have maintained their health throughout this 2020 shortened football season.  The players had not been injured and they had dodged the virus throughout the late summer and into the fall.  However, on Friday night misfortune struck as first the Eagles’ senior running back, Damien Barnes, was sidelined almost immediately in the Cheyenne Wells game with a pulled hamstring.  And, then worse of all, the team is now quarantined until the Friday before the playoffs.  All they can do is hope Barnes heals in the two-week quarantine and that they can qualify for the playoffs. 

It took the Eagles a little bit of time to warm up to the cold northern wind in Idalia, but once they got their running game squared around, they were off to the races.  Eads, in what would have been their Homecoming game this weekend, instead traveled to Idalia to upset their Homecoming in a lopsided, 73-23 win.  Eads is now 2-1 on the early season and were glad to get back in the win column.

With the early first quarter score 16-0 Stratton/Liberty was rolling along nicely against Eads when their star senior running back Jaret Lichty went down with what initially appeared to be a dislocated elbow but ended up being a broken arm.  The Knighted Eagles’ coach Toby Kechter said they then challenged the younger players to “play hard for Jaret.”  Kechter said, “There is no one in practice that plays as hard and expects the same from his teammates as Jaret, and the young guys know that.”

The Kit Carson Wildcats, coming off a big win over Miami-Yoder in the opening week of football, grabbed another non-conference win in Kiowa on Friday night as they defeated Kiowa, 34-6 to stay perfect at 2-0 on the season.  Next week they will begin the tough East Conference play.