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For most high school teams in North Carolina, Friday was the third week of the season.

For three-time state champion Mallard Creek, it was the first game of the year. The Mavericks has been sidelined due to COVID-19 causing infections among the players and the coaching staff.

“At the end of the day,” Mavericks head coach Kennedy Tinsley said, “you’ve got to appreciate the chance just to play, especially (with) everything we’ve been through. Then, you get a concern from a competitive standpoint because you’re two to three weeks behind everyone.”

Tinsley said he contracted COVID and he said battling the virus and missing practice and games “was not fun it all.”

“We thought we were out of it,” he said. “And when it hit, it hit hard. It has been tough and something we’ll have to continue to police, and honestly still have to do a better job to make sure we’re following protocols. Our AD does a great job of staying on us about all the little things. Our principal is always on us about masks in the building. We’ve just got to continue to practice good habits and go from there.”

Mallard Creek beat Providence 28-20 at home to start it season Friday. The Mavericks got behind early but rallied behind two touchdown passes from QB Brayden Hinze and a big second half interception from defensive back Darren Hamilton, who was one of the players who caught COVID.

Hamilton said he began to cramp Friday night and that could be at least partially attributed to him missing 10 days of practice while quaranting, but he was just happy to be playing.

“I caught it two weeks ago,” he said, “and it was bad because we had multiple people with it. But we came back the next week and everybody was prepared to get back in shape and get right.”

Said Hinze, the QB1: “We all missed it. It was great to be out there. It threw us off completely but we came back strong.”

Should CMS relax private school rule?

For years, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has had a policy of not playing private schools unless the meeting was in a third party tournament. Even when the Charlotte private schools changed their rules, years ago, to match the local public schools, CMS still did not relent.

I’m not going to argue about a full about face today. I am going to say that the district should relax the rule right now, just as it (correctly) did with the 2.0 requirement to play sports.

The pandemic is new to all of us, and it’s forcing massive disruptions to the schedule each week. At least two times this year, a CMS school and a Charlotte private were close to playing until the district shot down the idea.

Right now, we shouldn’t make it harder for teams to find opponents. We don’t know many games teams will get.

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