Local high school football fans eagerly awaiting the start of the 2024 season will have to wait just a little bit longer.
On the first scheduled night of local high school football Friday night, fans arriving at football games featuring local teams were instead met with lightning storms that caused delays that turned into postponements.
The five games scheduled for Friday that were set to feature the seven football teams in Whitfield or Murray counties have all been rescheduled for Saturday.
Coahulla Creek’s season-opening rivalry home game with Northwest Whitfield, which was the final local game to get an announced reschedule at about 9 p.m. Friday night, will be played Saturday at 11 a.m. at Coahulla.
Southeast Whitfield’s home game against Gordon Central has been moved to Saturday at noon, as has Murray County’s home game against Towns County.
Dalton and North Murray will now play at Harmon Field in Dalton Saturday night at 6:30, while Christian Heritage will play Heritage in Ringgold Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Heavy rainstorms swept through Dalton at around 7 p.m., bringing lightning that lit up the sky.
Rains had mostly subsided at Harmon Field in Dalton by the originally-scheduled kickoff time of 7:30 for Dalton’s game against North Murray, but lightning continued to strike.
Local teams announced delays in start times as storms rolled in. Most games entered a holding pattern as officials waited for the lighting to subside, but it kept striking. GHSA rules state that outdoor sporting events cannot be played until 30 minutes after the last visible lightning strike. The 30-minute clock was reset a few times before the game at Dalton was finally announced to be rescheduled.