Low numbers are again being problematic for the Alleman High School football team this week, necessitating the school not play this week’s scheduled game.
Alleman athletic director Mark VanNatta said Thursday afternoon that the Pioneers were forfeiting Friday’s Western Big 6 Conference game that was scheduled for Browning Field against the league-leading Moline Maroons.
According to VanNatta, after some injuries in last week’s Big 6 loss at Sterling, the Pioneers were down to 11 healthy sophomores through seniors. The hope was that players in concussion protocol would be cleared, but that didn’t happen.
“We started the year with 27 varsity players and right now we have 11 healthy bodies for varsity, which is 10th through 12th graders,” said VanNatta. “We have 13 or 14 healthy freshmen, so with that, we just felt like it was the right move for us to not play this game.”
Friday’s freshman preliminary game between the Pioneers and Maroons had previously been canceled because of Alleman’s numbers concerns.
Moline athletic director Todd Thompson said that Moline school officials do not have anything planned to fill the void since it happened on such short notice. A sophomore game against Dixon was added after the freshman game was canceled.
Moline (6-1, 5-0 Big 6 after the forfeit) does have one more home game scheduled — closing the season in two weeks against Galesburg on Senior Night. The Maroons are at United Township next Friday.
Maroons coach Mike Morrissey lamented on a social media post, “Another missed opportunity for our kids.”
VanNatta said the plan is for the Pioneers (1-6, 0-5 Big 6) to come back and finish out the regular season. Alleman is scheduled to play at Geneseo on Oct. 17 and host United Township on Oct. 24.
“Some of the boys who are healthy are upset that they’re not going to get the chance to play,” said VanNatta of this week’s forfeit. “But ultimately the decision from the administration and myself was (because of) low numbers and safety reasons, we thought this was the best course of action for the team and the program.”
The Pioneers have been battling low numbers in the program for three years now. During the 2022 season, they were forced to forfeit to Moline before finishing the final four games of a 1-8 campaign.
Alleman did not play varsity football for the 2023 and 2024 seasons, reorganizing and building for this year’s return.
While wanting to focus on getting players healthy and returning to action to close out the final two games of this season, VanNatta did say that with the numbers in the freshman and sophomore classes and those coming up, that the Pioneers should be able to sustain the program in the future.
This week’s Alleman forfeit is not the only one in the state caused by low numbers. Elgin Larkin had to forfeit its game against West Aurora.
Earlier this season and much closer to the Quad-Cities, Sherrard had to forfeit its home game against Princeton because of low numbers. The winless Tigers have since come back to play the last three weeks and are at Kewanee (0-6) this Friday in a Three Rivers Mississippi clash.
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