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Photo by Benjamin London
Hart County Charter System (HCCS) announced the cancellation of Hart County’s homecoming football game versus Cross Creek scheduled for Sept. 22 at Herndon Stadium. Then an hour later announced a new opponent in Bulloch Academy to fill the void.
The HCCS announced the cancellation of the Cross Creek game through a press release around 11 a.m. Sept. 19. The cancellation is in reference to Cross Creek’s road game against Savannah High School which ended in the third quarter due to a bench clearing brawl. After everyone was separated, the game was called and Cross Creek was given the win after being up 28-0 at that point in the game.
The Richmond County School System and the Georgia High School Association had to investigate the situation. After the investigation concluded, they mandated Cross Creek and Savannah to forfeit their upcoming games, as Cross Creek was scheduled to play at Hart County Sept. 22, as Savannah was scheduled to host Bulloch Academy, a Georgia Independent Athletic Association [GIAA] AAAA/AAA District 2 Region school Sept. 23.
With the cancellation of Cross Creek, the HCCS began to seek a new opponent to play, as Friday night is slated to be Hart County’s Homecoming game. The school administrators and athletic director and head football coach Cory Dickerson were actively seeking a new opponent to host in Herndon Stadium for Homecoming. “I speak on behalf of Cory Dickerson,” said assistant principal of Hart County High School Cecil Marrett. “We are working tirelessly to find a new opponent to host for Friday’s homecoming game. We are willing to play anyone at this point [to honor homecoming]. We will play Friday night.”
Just after the press release was sent out, Hart County made the call to Bulloch Academy and made an agreement to make the trip from Statesboro to Hartwell on Friday. It will be Bulloch Academy’s sixth team that they have faced out of the Georgia High School Association [GHSA]. It will be Hart County’s first meeting with a GIAA opponent. Dickerson spoke about the situation and how everything came to fruition.
“We received an email this morning from the GHSA saying that they were going to make Cross Creek forfeit their game against us, due to an incident that happened last week during their game with Savannah,” Dickerson said. “Shortly after that, I got on the phone with the GHSA and received more details about the incident. Then I also mentioned that it was our homecoming and had a lot going on that evening. They then gave us a list of teams that could be possibly looking for a game. They just didn’t have 10 games and had an open week this week. We started calling teams around, a lot of teams said they were not going to do it. I get it, a lot of coaches don’t want to schedule a game on a Tuesday to play them on Friday. So much of football is preparation. We met as a staff on Sunday at 2 p.m. and stayed until 8 or 8:30 p.m. preparing for Cross Creek, then spent all day Monday at practice preparing for them at practice. Football is all about preparation and a lot of people are hesitant to schedule someone on Tuesday to play on Friday.
“Then we called Bulloch Academy, who Savannah High School was supposed to play, who was involved in the incident with Cross Creek, and was forced to forfeit their game as well. It worked out for Bulloch Academy to play us. They also have an open week next week, and didn’t want to have back-to-back open weeks. We haven’t had film on them for long, but they are a good opponent for us to play. It doesn’t matter about the size of the school, they have 11 good players on offense, defense, and special teams. It will be a challenge, but we are excited for the opportunity. When you are afraid you will lose a game, on top of that losing homecoming and how special of a night it is for a lot of people for different reasons, we are just thankful we get to play.”
Hart County now has to quickly shift their focus to host Bulloch Academy for the first time in program history. The Gators (4-0) will make the 167 mile trip from Statesboro to Hartwell with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m. from Herndon Stadium, with homecoming festivities remaining the same.