WEATHER FORCES CANCELLATION OF NORTHSIDE GAME

Weather forces cancellation of Northside game

BUCK RINGGOLD

Times Record | 9/17/2016

Northside's scheduled home game Friday against Pine Bluff was cancelled due to inclement weather which hit Mayo-Thompson Stadium prior to kickoff.

At least 30 minutes before kickoff, both teams left the field and the stadium was cleared of fans because of an approaching storm. Shortly thereafter, heavy rain pelted the stadium, with several lightning strikes in the distance.


There were some optimism among Northside coaches and school officials during the delay the game would still be played, but another round of storms at approximately 8 p.m. eventually led to both teams mutually agreeing to cancel the game.

"The biggest thing we take into account is safety, it's the players' safety and we have guidelines set forth by the (Arkansas Activities Association), that if lightning is within an eight-mile radius, we have to be free of that zone for 30 minutes and we just couldn't overcome that," Fort Smith Public Schools athletics director Dr. Darren McKinney said. "Mother Nature decided from about 6:20 on that we were going to have some sort of weather and we just could not overcome it.

"From visiting the Pine Bluff coaches and talking with them, their biggest concern was travel time and getting back at a decent hour. We understood, and so we just couldn't overcome weather and the time factor, we just kept pushing it back further and further and so it ended up, we just mutually agreed to cancel."

The fact that it was a non-conference game for both teams also was a factor in the decision to eventually cancel Friday's game.

"I just told (the players), we made a decision based on it's still lightning and they (Pine Bluff) have got a long trip and they didn't want to stay here all night and get home at 3 in the morning, which I totally understand," Northside coach Mike Falleur said. "I just told the kids, look, there's nothing we can do about it.

"You've worked hard all week, and we didn't have any idea it was going to (turn out to be) an open week or a bye week, we had good practices, so this will give us a chance to come out of this weekend healthy and ready to go for conference next week, that's a huge, big game for us."

Northside (1-1) opens 7A-Central play next Friday on the road at Bryant. The Grizzlies won't return home until Oct. 7, when they play Little Rock Catholic.

Other games around the area were also affected by the storms. The Alma-Greenwood game was delayed for more than two hours and didn't kick off until approximately 9:30 p.m. Also, Van Buren's home game against Siloam Springs was delayed for nearly two hours before starting around 9 p.m.

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