Philipsburg-Osceola Area High School made the difficult decision Sunday night to forfeit the rest of their football season.
The head coach for the Philipsburg-Osceola High School Football team, says they started off their season winning their first game but after that, several players suffered injuries.
Ryan Whitehead started Philipsburg Osceola high’s football season as the starting Quarterback and then came week five of the season.
“I had a grade 2 ankle sprain, I got it when we played Bishop Carroll, so that would have been our 5th game,” Whitehead, said.
That was just the start of it.
“We would have been to our fifth string Quarterback this week, second and third string running back,” Whitehead, said.
Head Coach, Brian McGonigal, says they started the season with 38 players.
But now with eleven injured and six quitting there were only 21 healthy players left for Friday’s game against Clearfield.
McGonigal says he wouldn’t have played seven Freshman in this weeks game against a tough opponent like Clearfield.
“As a coach, I have 38 Moms and 38 Dads we’ve entrusted me to look after their kids, Monday through Friday and look out for their well-being and safety and when it came down to it, we were just sitting there, these kids are going to get injured even more,” Coach McGonigal, said.
A meeting was called with school administration, parents and players.
In the end, the players were left with the final choice to forfeit the rest of the season.
“It was a hard decision to just say, ‘Let’s not play the last few games, but we had to all realize , you can’t throw out the Freshman and let them get hurt,” Aaron Depto, Co-Captain for the Philipsburg-Osceola Area High School Football Team, said. “So, for safety and stuff we had to agree.”