Two media outlets — the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and Scoring Live — reported Wednesday that Friday’s No. 1 Saint Louis vs. No. 4 Punahou Interscholastic League of Honolulu football game scheduled for Aloha Stadium has been postponed.
No new date has been set for the private school rivalry game.
Bedrock Sports Hawaii confirmed today that the postponement is due to positive COVID-19 tests at one of the schools. It was not clear if those testing positive were players, coaches or staff.
Punahou vs. Saint Louis is usually a good one, but it won’t be Friday night.
This new development comes one week after the scheduled Saint Louis I-AA vs. PAC-5 game was canceled due to one team with some positive COVID-19 tests. That game will not be made up.
The Saint Louis vs. Punahou postponement is not a good sign for the future of high school football this season in Hawaii.
A full slate of games in Hawaii’s five leagues from August through November was supposed to begin Aug. 6, but the Department of Education announced a few days before that day that public school teams in all fall sports would not be able to start until all student-athletes had a chance to be vaccinated. The DOE then set a Sept. 24 restart of training camps.
A little later, the OIA and neighbor island leagues began to release revamped, shorter versions of their football schedules, with regular season games starting Oct. 15 and ending in early December.
Meanwhile, at about the same time, the private school ILH came up with a revamped schedule of its own, with its regular season starting Aug. 27 and ending in mid-October — about the same time the OIA and neighbor island leagues will be starting. The hope was, and still is, that league playoffs and a state tournament can be held in December and early January.
The ILH was able to get two games into the books last weekend: ‘Iolani 28, Damien 0 and Punahou 33, Kamehameha 28.
Two more games, not including Saint Louis vs. Punahou, are scheduled for Friday. PAC-5 swings into action under new coach Kena Heffernan at 3:15 p.m. at ‘Iolani (1-0). Also, Damien (0-1) meets Kamehameha I-AA at 5 p.m. at Aloha Stadium.
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