FOXBURG, Pa. – A-C Valley will likely have to forfeit their District 9 Class 1A volleyball quarterfinal match against Clarion Tuesday, Nov. 3, because of a school shutdown because of COVID-19.
On Friday, Oct. 30, A-C Valley superintendent David McDeavitt informed the school district community that the district had one additional case of COVID-19 reported giving it three positive COVID-19 cases. In addition, the district also had 16 people who are in quarantine.
“Because of the COVID positive cases and the number of people on quarantine, I will be closing the school district for a total of five days,” McDeavitt said in his call/letter. “This closure will include all athletic programs and the students who attend the CCCC (Clarion County Career Center).”
McDeavitt said the five days would include Friday, Oct. 30, as well as Saturday, Oct. 31, Sunday, Nov. 1, and Tuesday, Nov. 3.
“We will count today as day one and are planning to return to face-to-face instruction on Wednesday, November 4, 2020,” McDeavitt said. “This means that we will continue with distance learning on Monday and Tuesday of next week. In the meantime, I will be working with the DOH (Pennsylvania Department of Health), as well as our school nurses to evaluate the current situation. If we have additional COVID related cases, this closure may be extended.
“We do apologize for this inconvenience, but we are doing our best to mitigate this spread.”
D9and10Sports.com then reached out to A-C Valley head coach Mike Meals at 2:36 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, to see if this would mean the volleyball team would have to forfeit the match against Clarion.
Meals first responded that he had not been informed at that time. He then reached back out to D9and10sports.com at 4:43 p.m. to say he had been informed that the Lady Falcons season was over.
“I just got an e-mail, we are done,” Meals said.
D9and10sports.com has reached out to District 9 chairman/volleyball chairman Aaron Straub to find out if A-C Valley has officially notified District 9 that they are out of the tournament as well as to see if Johnsonburg had also officially informed the District it would not be playing its quarterfinal game against Oswayo Valley. As of 5:06 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30, Straub had not responded.
If neither A-C Valley nor Johnsonburg can play Tuesday, then those games officially go down as forfeits based on information sent out to schools prior to the District 9 tournament starting stating that if a team could not play because of COVID-19 they would have to forfeit the match.
The two forfeits would mean both Clarion and Oswayo Valley move into the District 9 Class 1A semifinals where they would face each other Thursday, Nov. 5, at Clarion. Clarion is the top seed in the tournament and Oswayo Valley is the fifth seed.
Editor’s Note: This is a breaking story and information may change. The story is updated as of 5:10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 30. D9and10sports.com will do its best to keep you abreast on the situation but understand we are covering football games tonight and may not be able to update – if an update is needed – until after 11 p.m.
