BANGS – Due to approximately half of the Dragons’ varsity football team coming down with COVID, Friday’s home football game against the Winters Blizzards has been cancelled, Bangs head football coach and athletic director Kyle Maxfield announced Tuesday morning.

“We’ve been really fortunate and I probably jinxed us because I mentioned this weekend how we’ve been fortunate not to lose kids to COVID, but it finally caught up to us,” Maxfield said. “Winters was battling the same thing, they closed their school down last week. (Winters) Coach (Matt) McCarty thought they would be able to play but he was still on the fence, and then we have nearly half our varsity team out with it, at least close to it. So we’re battling that and trying to get a game plan to go from there.”

Maxfield added as of now the JV game will still be played at Winters Thursday, along with one junior high football game in Bangs.

Bangs will continue to conduct football practice this week for those who are able to attend.

“We definitely need the practice and we’re going to have enough guys to get some kind of practice in,” Maxfield said.

The Dragons (0-2) are slated to be back in action next week at Hamilton, which cancelled its game with Bangs last season due to COVID.

“Who would have thought last year when games were being cancelled that we’d still be going through this,” Maxfield said. “That’s the way it is and we preach to our guys you can only control what you can control.”