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WINTERSVILLE -- Indian Creek easily could have ended its season when a coach and player tested positive for COVID-19 three weeks ago.
The community would have understood, and many others may feel bad. That was not what head coach Andrew Connor and his Redskins would have wanted.
"Everybody wants finality. I didn't want (COVID) to be the way our seniors ended their season," Connor said. "I didn't want the season to end for the seniors on a Tuesday with a 7:45 a.m. call telling everyone to leave the building."
Describing this season in one word, Connor said grateful. The coach was released from the hospital, and the student-athlete returned to school. The Redskins worked and practiced as hard and long as they could to get back on the gridiron one final time.
Creek accomplished its goal. It concluded the 2020 campaign with a 39-2 over Edison on Saturday.
"I think we were very grateful that we were able to compete," Connor said. "I think we were grateful that we were able to keep the community safe as best as we could. And, I think we were grateful that we were able to spend this season together as a family.
"We really had to get after it after being off for 13 days. We conditioned early and practiced late, just trying to make sure they were at their best. For safety reasons, I wanted to make sure we could tackle again and run around again. It was like anything else with that final week of practice."
Connor added the plan was to return for just one more game. Ohio teams can schedule a Week 11 regular season opponent it they wish, but the Redskins decided to begin focus on winter sports.
"It was time for us to wrap our heads around just how far we've come. We got to Week 10, and we were able to finish the season," Connor said.
When news first broke three weeks ago Tuesday that Creek tested positive, playing one more time was the last thing on anybody's mind.
"People kept asking me, 'Are you going to play or not play?' My first priority was that I had a coach and a player sick, and we had to make sure that they would be OK," Connor said. "We also had to make sure that nobody else would get it. That's the last thing you want for the players inside your family to get.
"Once we hurdled the safety of our coach and player, then we moved on to playing the game. It worked out because we were playing Edison. That was great because it's a game against your rival, and the kids know each other really well. That put a lot of energy in our kids to come back and do well."
Eleven seniors concluded their high school football careers with the Route 43 Bowl in check. Out of the 11, Matt Schaefer arguably had the toughest road.
The senior running back missed multiple weeks early due to a non-COVID related illness. On Saturday, he finished with four rushing touchdowns (the shortest being 43 yards) and nearly broke the school record for most rushing yards in a game. He collected 282 yards in three quarters.
This isn't to say the other 10 seniors had it easy by any measure.
"When I look at my seniors, Matt had a sickness he had to come back from. Another senior got COVID. A couple of other kids had some pretty devastating injuries they had to come back from. It's just been a tough year for our seniors," Connor said. "They missed out on a lot of things like the team picnic or spending time in the locker room. This season was spent 6-feet apart from one another."