Some scrimmages, golf matches canceled with non-AC Baltimore County schools closed Friday

Some Baltimore County athletic directors had to scramble Thursday after public school officials announced that the seven schools without air conditioning will be closed Friday and that teams from those schools cannot practice or participate in scrimmages.Dulaney, Franklin, Kenwood, Lansdowne, Overlea, Patapsco and Woodlawn are the schools affected. In the past, all county schools were closed when the heat index reached a certain level. Now only the non-air-conditioned schools will close when the heat index is forecast to be 90 degrees or higher, according to the county's heat policy.At Dulaney, athletic director Richard Reed and football coach Daron Reid anticipated the closing and moved their Friday football scrimmage with Poly to Thursday evening.Reed, however, had to cancel a Friday volleyball scrimmage with a team from New Jersey and a regular-season golf match with Towson. Several schools had to cancel golf and none of those matches can be made up, Reed said.&quot;The challenge for the golf program is playing on a public course,&quot; Reed said, &quot;and the ability to reschedule at times that would benefit both teams is non-existent -- and the fact that we're not allowed to hurts, being that it's a short season already. These kids put a lot of time and effort into it and it's a shame to see them lose a match. As we all know, golf is a sport of routine and when you rock the boat on the routine it can really throw them off a little bit. It's really unfortunate.&quot;At Franklin, athletic director Dave Scrivener said the golf match against Perry Hall has been canceled but the football scrimmage against Northwest will be moved to Saturday. Patapsco's football scrimmage at Dunbar has also been moved to Saturday.Kenwood, Overlea and Woodlawn were unable to reschedule their original football scrimmages for Saturday, but Overlea and Woodlawn will now scrimmage each other at Woodlawn on Saturday morning.The regular season kicks off Sept. 2 for all public school sports in Maryland, other than golf which is already rolling, and no coach wants to forgo that final scrimmage.Football coaches usually run full-game scrimmages the week before they open as opposed to controlled scrimmages earlier in preseason. It's their chance to put it all together.&quot;You wouldn't have that chance to try to polish your technique against somebody else and see how far along you are or are not,&quot; Woodlawn coach John Dixon said. &quot;Sometimes things happen and we can't control them, but this is the type of game you get to see everything, special teams, offensive line, defensive line -- how they adjust to other people, not just your team.&quot;With the weather forecast calling for a stretch of 90-plus degree days, athletic directors are worried they might face this again early next week.

Some scrimmages, golf matches canceled with non-AC Baltimore County schools closed Friday

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