Southern Valley Eagles cancel remaining football games this fall

ksnb.com and mccook gazette

OXFORD, Neb. - Southern Valley Schools announced Tuesday they have canceled the remainder of their 2024 high school football season effective immediately due to a lack of available players. This includes both the varsity and junior varsity teams.

The district said the decision did not come lightly, but they could not in good conscience put the few players they had left in a tough position.

“For us, numbers-wise, we didn’t have enough kids available to put a safe product out on the field any further,” Southern Valley activities director Josh Lanik said while mentioning only "10, 11 healthy bodies were available" from grades nine through 12.

"Some of our younger kids are not quite varsity ready, so we would be doing them a disservice," Lanik also said. "We couldn't with a clean consience put them out there on a Friday night."

Southern Valley faced this same dilemma five years ago when the Eagles canceled their 2019 season following three games an 11-man team.

The Eagles resumed in 2020 playing eight-man football where coach Russell Norton’s team reached state playoffs while finishing 5-4.

Yet Southern Valley has only won three games since 2020 going 1-7, 0-8 and 2-6 last season. The Eagles were 0-5 this fall with their last three games featuring 81-6, 67-6 and 50-0 final margins.

Southern Valley’s closest contest was a 44-10 home loss to Arcadia-Loup City on Sept. 6.

The Eagles were set to play 0-5 Hi-Line Friday at Elwood.

Instead, the Bulls will receive their first win by forfeit. Dundy County-Stratton now has an open date on Oct. 18 rather than playing the Eagles.