{"id":44072,"date":"2021-10-26T20:46:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T02:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ignacio-football-forfeiting-finale-at-del-norte\/"},"modified":"2021-10-27T02:46:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-27T02:46:00","slug":"ignacio-football-forfeiting-finale-at-del-norte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ignacio-football-forfeiting-finale-at-del-norte\/","title":{"rendered":"Ignacio football forfeiting finale at Del Norte"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Five
Five game-day footballs on Ignacio High School\u2019s sideline before a game this fall. Back-to-back forfeits will conclude the once-promising campaign. (Joel Priest\/Special to the Herald)<\/span>Joel Priest\/Special to the Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

On Monday morning, the other shoe dropped for Ignacio\u2019s football team.<\/p>\n

And with Ignacio barely treading water, it sunk the Bobcats\u2019 once-promising fall season like concrete galoshes.<\/p>\n

Having elected to forfeit their Senior Night home game versus 1A Southern Peaks Conference heavyweight Centauri on Friday, the decision was made \u2013 and announced in an e-mail from IHS Athletic Director Leo Garand \u2013 to also axe their slated finale this Friday night at Del Norte.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got nine kids left, so it was really tough. I wish we would have had the same 14 kids when we started, before we got hurt,\u201d said IHS head coach Alfonso \u201cPonch\u201d Garcia, alluding primarily to a crippling wave of injuries, which first impacted Ignacio right before its league opener Oct. 8 against Center, but also indirectly to rumored academic troubles. \u201cWho knows what would have happened, you know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAgainst Monte Vista, I had to patch up the team just so I could honor the game. I wish I could have done that for (Del Norte) so they can, you know, get a game \u2026 instead of getting a forfeit. I\u2019m sure they\u2019re pretty bummed. I feel really bad for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is always difficult to not play a game for whatever reason, whether it be for COVID, eligibility issues or injury,\u201d Del Norte athletic director and head football coach Richie Madrid said Tuesday morning. \u201cThe Del Norte football team was looking forward to playing Ignacio, not because they are a league opponent but because it is Ignacio and you know the game is going to be competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following a second 2-0 forfeit loss in as many weeks, the \u2019Cats will finish 5-4 overall, but a most disappointing 0-4 in SoPeaks play. The Tigers, meanwhile, should improve to 2-6, 1-2. Their Oct. 8 clash with Centauri was ruled a no-contest because of pandemic-prevention protocols that depleted both teams. Del Norte will bring in non-conference Peyton as a replacement for Ignacio.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in touch with them last week \u2026 trying to give them the heads-up that there could be a possibility we were not going to have a game,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cThe only way we were going to play was \u2026 it would have to be a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really sad what\u2019s happened because I wanted our seniors to finish on a good note. And they don\u2019t get to finish like that now,\u201d Garcis said. \u201cThey\u2019ll be very well-missed. It\u2019s a good group of kids, one of the best I\u2019ve had the pleasure of coaching.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Injured \u2018Cats down to nine players<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[926,28,1235],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-football","tag-headlines","tag-ignacio"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44072"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}