In the seemingly ever-changing high school sports landscape, the Escalon football program is hoping – once again – to play rival Ripon.

“As you may know, Ripon football (junior varsity and varsity) was scheduled to play at Escalon on Friday, April 9,” explained EHS Athletic Director Nate Bartelink in an April 2 e-mail. “Ripon’s Varsity team was recently quarantined so Central Catholic Varsity was briefly scheduled to fill the void on Friday.”

However, Bartelink said Ripon contacted EHS officials on April 2 and said they can return from quarantine on Saturday, April 10. With that information at hand, the Friday game with Central Catholic planned for April 9 has been cancelled and Ripon is now scheduled to play at Escalon on Saturday, April 10. That was the latest information available at press time for The Times on Monday evening, April 5.

“The JV will play at 5 p.m. and the Varsity will play at 7 p.m.,” Bartelink said of the April 10 contests.

The games will go off as scheduled unless there are issues with positive COVID testing on either team. Escalon is emerging from a COVID quarantine of all its football teams, with the freshmen, JV and Varsity all impacted. The quarantine resulted in cancellation of a home game for the JV and varsity that was to be played on April 1. By moving the Ripon game to April 10, it is hoped they will get to suit up and play at Engel Field.

If there is another change in schedule and the information is available, look for it on the website at www.escalontimes.com.