This season has definitely been a weird one with COVID 19. The team had to make some changes to keep everybody healthy. Football is one of the highest contact sports in high school so the team had to be extra cautious. For example a few changes they made are, they had to sanitize all the football pads after every practice, when in the weight room they were required to wear face masks, and they had to space out on the sidelines. 

“A big obstacle we have this year is dealing with the non-normalcy. COVID has messed a lot of things up in this world, and we are so grateful that we are able to play football this fall,” said senior quarterback Ryan Mace 

The gaming schedule was a little different from most years. Like for example the Dutch are not going to be able to face off Oskaloosa or Grinnel on the field this season. Coach McKinstrey also had to find two teams who would be willing to play the team for the first two games, which they lost, while the state association planned the rest of our schedule. Our current record is 2-3. 

“We played two very good teams the first two games so even though we lost them the team learned a lot and improved in many ways after each game” coach McKinstery said. 

Coach McKinstery knew that the loss to Harlan was definitely a tough loss for the team and believed they kinda “let one get away” with that loss but knows the team learned many things and bounced back very well from that game. 

Mace agreed saying. “Personally I think the season has gone pretty well,” said Mace. “Though our record is 2-2, we have had great success, a lot of learning, and we have all had a lot of fun with all of the other players.” 

The team has a few big goals this year, including winning district and state championships. But their main goal is just to improve each week and to continue working hard. 

“We want to have continuous improvement week after week, and we have goals that we wanna improve ourselves as people,” McKinstry said. “We want to do good both on and off the field.”