With the AAA Benefit Scrimmage Games in the books, and for the Monticello School District, the annual Blue/White contest and kids camp all wrapped up, the Billies and Pirates turned their attention to the week fans have been waiting for since the final whistle blew from a season ago, the start of the regular season.
With preparations for the first real game of the season underway, another obstacle has arrived this week that is a rarity.
There have been extreme weather cases that have postponed games, or even having contests called at halftime. A few years ago, a game between Monticello and Star City was postponed to finish on Saturday after completing part of the contest on Friday.
In those cases it is always severe thunderstorms that move through the area where just a simple lightning delay will not suffice.
For Monticello and Drew Central, as well as every high school across the state, athletic directors and school superintendents have had to make a decision regarding the safety of not only their student athletes but their opponents as well as extreme heat advisories have been issued state wide through Saturday.
Last week saw moderate summertime temperatures throughout the state for the majority of the AAA Benefit Scrimmages, but unfortunately high heat indexes moved into the state for game week that have called for the National Weather Service to issue Excessive Heat Warnings for the state.
With temperatures approaching 100 plus degrees every day for the remainder of the week with heat index values pushing the temperatures upwards of 110 degrees, school officials have had to make adjustments to their schedules.
There have been some schools in the state that have cancelled their opening contests with others opting to play their games as scheduled with the kickoff time adjusted for the high temperatures.
Beginning on Thursday, the forecasted high temperatures are expected to reach 103 degrees or higher with the heat indexes reaching a possibility of 110 degrees and higher. For this reason both the junior high contests have been adjusted.
For Drew Central, who will host Bearden in a junior high contest, the seventh grade contest has been cancelled, with the kickoff for the contest to begin at 8 pm instead of 7 pm.
For Monticello, they will travel to Fordyce with the seventh grade contest cancelled and the junior contest to begin at 7:30 pm.
The forecast is the same for the senior high contests on Friday with the Monticello Billies hosting the Fordyce Redbugs and the Drew Central Pirates traveling to Bearden to face the Bears.
Both of the high school contests have been pushed back one hour to 8 pm instead of the normal 7 pm kickoff times to adjust to the heat.
