High school football: Injuries force Oberlin to cancel game against Wellington; Dukes find replacement in New London (UPDATED)

Injuries won't allow Oberlin to take the field tonight to renew its Lorain County League rivalry with Wellington but the Dukes were able to call a last-minute audible and find a new opponent to join them under the Friday night lights. On Wednesday night, Oberlin athletic director Bryce Johnson informed Wellington coach Rob Howells that the Phoenix, down to 11 healthy players, would be unable to field a team for tonight's Week 8 home game against Wellington. Both schools issued statements Thursday morning informing their fans and school communities of the cancellation but by mid-afternoon Wellington was able to find a new opponent and add a home game against New London tonight at 7 o'clock. "It was luck. Being a neighborhood team we've got a pretty good relationship with them," Wellington athletic director John Bowman said of New London. "We kinda lucked out there. Think about all of the teams you could play, what's the chance you get one right in your backyard." After dealing with low numbers in the football program in recent years, Oberlin found itself in a position where it had no choice but to temporarily pause the season. "We have 11 able bodies that can take a field," Johnson said. "We have seven guys who are injured and not cleared to play for Friday. We have another player who has been sick all week and one who has been out of school all week due to a family emergency. That took us down to not being able to safely field a team against Wellington. I think this is the first time besides COVID that we've ever had to cancel a game." Johnson, who took over as athletic director in 2022, and first-year coach Mike Campo have been working to rebuild the Oberlin program from the bottom up to make it sustainable and competitive. "In the last year and a half we've put enough things in place that I am confident this won't happen again," Johnson said. "Youth football is back in place building a pipeline, we gave our middle school kids an opportunity to play this year in a way that hasn't been done before. We're making sure this program never has this type of issue again." Oberlin expects to have enough healthy players to play its final two games at home against Firelands and at Keystone. Under Ohio High School Athletic Association rules, the canceled game will go down as a no contest and not be reflected in either teams' record. Because New London has not played any varsity games this season — the Wildcats are playing a junior varsity schedule as they attempt to resurrect their program which has been dormant since 2020 — Bowman in unsure how the game will be reflected in the OHSAA computer points. But the Dukes' main priority was making sure their players didn't miss out on a week of football. "We never lost hope that we'd be able to find a game for them and luckily we were able to do that," Howells said. "Our seniors only have three guaranteed games left. They get to take the field and they don't get slighted. All of the credit goes to New London. They were willing to work with us and come here and get things done." Howells said the Dukes (1-6) will rely on the lessons learned during COVID when games were scheduled and rescheduled on a moment's notice to get ready for an opponent it didn't have the chance to scout or game plan for. "We have to tap back into what we did in 2020," Howells said. "At the end of the day, kids want to play games and be rewarded for their efforts during the week. We're just going to play football and make the adjustments as we go. We have an opportunity to play football and that's all that matters." Bowman, a Wellington alum, knows how big the Wellington-Oberlin rivalry has been over the years. But instead of focusing on what was lost, he's just happy a new opportunity presented itself. "Being a Wellington grad, I love the Oberlin-Wellington rivalry," he said. "It's unfortunate we won't have an installment of the Battle of 58. The kids were prepping for Oberlin all week but that's life, you've got to fight through adversity. You only get 10 football games a season. For the seniors out there, they go really quick so to lose one is devastating. To be able to pick up a game and keep the rhythm of the season going was important to us. There's only a few weeks left in the season so we wanted to give those kids an opportunity to play." Contact Todd Shapiro at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.