Final Du Quoin football game, Senior Night moved to April 26

The final Du Quoin football game of the 2020-21 season will be played at 6 p.m. Monday, April 26, as the Indians take on the Carterville Lions in a game that has been moved back a few days to accommodate Du Quoin players coming off COVID-19 quarantining.

The game, originally slated for Friday, April 23, has been pushed back so the players could get in some workouts.

"This will give us a chance to get them back and get some practices in before the game," said District 300 Superintendent Matt Hickam on Monday.

A Du Quoin varsity football player was diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, which led to 20 high school students having to be quarantined, about half of them upperclassmen football players. Saturday's home game against Harrisburg was canceled. At Du Quoin High School, no teachers and coaches were quarantined, as most of them had been vaccinated.

Hickam said under Illinois Department of Public Health rules, quarantined students who exhibit no symptoms and no fevers after 10 days can return to class. However, they cannot return to extracurricular activities, including sports, for the full 14 days.

"Some of those kids are coming back today and tomorrow, but they can't resume any extracurrculars until Friday at the earliest," Hickam said Monday.

He said Carterville was kind enough to accommodate Du Quoin's need to push back the game.

So far, Hickam said, no other students who came in contact with the COVID-positive student have tested positive for the coronavirus.

The COVID-positive student is expected back in class this week, too, the superintendent said.

Another reason to push the game to Monday involves the Senior Night ceremony, which will be held during pregame activities at Van Metre Field on Monday. Seniors from football, the marching band, cheerleading and the Indianettes will be honored.

Hickam said the 2020-21 football season, now winding down after six chaotic weeks, has been better than no season at all. But he said it has been a "real challenge" for the high school administration and Athletic Director Derek Beard, who is also the football coach.

"There have a lot of obstacles," Hickam said, referring to both COVID-19 and the difficulty other schools have had fielding enough players to play football at all. Du Quoin's first game of the season, was meant to be Pinckneyville, but the Panthers called off the season - in coach Tod Rushing's final year - when they didn't have enough players to have a varsity team. Instead, Du Quoin got in a game with Willisville.

Meanwhile, Du Quoin's 56-0 win over Sparta on March 27 turned out to the only game Sparta played this season.

"We were pleasantly surprised to have a season," Hickam said. "We didn't think we'd have football and volleyball - it was really neat to have them back."

Van Metre Field wasn't sold out for the games. Of a roughly 800-person capacity during the pandemic, about 600 people came for each game. Others presumably watched the games at home on TV.