The first weekend of the high school football season was anything but routine for Lakeville North.
"Pretty wild," said Panthers coach Brian Vossen following their 55-14 win over Cretin-Derham Hall on Saturday afternoon at Northwestern's Reynolds Field.
Winning the opener was one thing, getting to that point is what nearly drove everyone to the edge.
While a number of teams had their games wiped out because of coronavirus concerns, the Panthers and Raiders worked to almost the last minute to get their kids on the field, together.
Lakeville North's first game had been scheduled for Friday, but was called off when Rosemount came up with positive coronavirus tests.
That was Thursday afternoon.
Lakeville North athletic administrators began scrambling to find an opponent, any opponent, any time, anywhere.
Sounds like a cliche, but it was reality in this COVID-19-affected Minnesota prep sports calendar.
They went as far as calling Roosevelt, South Dakota, but an out-of-state game was a no-go because of pandemic concerns.
Becker and Spring Lake Park were also contacted, but those two teams had worked out a deal to face each other.
Resigned to the unexpected bye week, Vossen and his staff gathered at his home Friday night and were knee-deep into watching several games on multiple screens when the phone rang at about 9:00 p.m.
Cretin-Derham Hall's game on Saturday afternoon had been postponed about 24 hours before kickoff when Roseville got a positive coronavirus test, and Raiders coach Chuck Miesbauer wanted to know if the Panthers could fill in.
"I got a call from their head coach," Vossen said. "Just like that, it was, looks like we're playing a game."
What had become a casual approach to a long weekend turned on a dime for the Panthers.
"Here's the weirdest thing, you find out you're not playing, your Thursday walk-through turns into kind of a screw-around session (because) you can't get their focus," Vossen said. "Friday night when you hear we got a game, you're, like, we got to make sure the kids didn't go out of town to go hunting."
Which they didn't, and Vossen knows why.
"Luckily they were all just waiting to play," he said. "It just came down to the culture of your program, and fundamentals, and really, just kids loving to play football."
Both the Panthers and Raiders are scheduled to play on Friday, COVID permitting.
"This season is so weird," said Vassen. "It has to be just about the next team and the next opportunity. You literally just take any opponent you can get."
