Messenger photo by Britt Kudla: St. Edmond's Grant Galles cuts upfield against Bishop Garrigan last Friday.

The St. Edmond football squad should have been preparing this week for a matchup on the road at Siouxland Christian.

But like so many schools across Iowa, the Gaels lost a chance to compete on Friday night when the Eagles canceled their season earlier this year.

Siouxland Christian is one of six different 8-player programs that have either completely ended the varsity season or put it on a pause since the year kicked off in late August. They made the decision after falling behind 60-0 at the half in the opener to Coon Rapids-Bayard.

Much like St. Edmond’s win vs. Remsen St. Mary’s, that Siouxland Christian game vs. Coon Rapids-Bayard was called before the start of the third. The Gaels will move to 3-2 overall and 3-0 in eight-player, District 1 with an official 17-0 forfeit victory over the Eagles.

Lone Tree, Rockford, Dunkerton and New London each canceled their varsity seasons before taking a snap. Remsen St. Mary’s — the defending eight-player state champion — Highland and Mormon Trail have all paused play.

Of those teams, all of them are in eight-player other than Highland and New London — members of Class A, which is the smallest 11-player classification. New London topped Rockford for the 2018 eight-player state championship.

“It’s definitely not something we’ve seen in Iowa very often until now,” SEHS head coach Matt Dillon said. “You really, really hope all of these forfeits and cancellations are just a fluke one-year problem, because the season is already short and quick. So when something like this happens, it isn’t fun or good for anybody involved.”

Running back Aaron Hindt is closing in on 1,000 career rushing yards for St. Edmond, as the junior currently has 983 with 16 touchdowns. Senior Kinnick Henning, who missed much of last year with an injury, has 549 yards on the ground with five scores.

Senior Ethan Swisher has 1,655 career passing yards with 23 touchdowns, adding 284 yards and four scores with his legs to date. Swisher’s top targets, classmates Grant Galles and Jakob Koopman, have over 100 combined receptions and 2,000 yards receiving in their careers.

Galles, who has returned a combined seven interceptions, kickoffs and punts for TDs, has 89 catches for 1,485 yards and 21 scores. Koopman has 32 receptions for 630 and seven touchdowns.

Koleman Hanson, also a senior, has recorded 121 touchbacks in his St. Edmond career.

“We’ve been able to use the extra time to get healthy,” Dillon said. “We’ll come back next week and really attack our plan that we put into place for GTRA.”

The Gaels return to the field next Friday when they host co-district leader GTRA for Homecoming inside Dodger Stadium at 7 p.m. St. Edmond welcomes in Harris-Lake Park the following week, before heading to Kingsley-Pierson on Friday, Oct. 17, for the regular season finale.

Opening-round action in the playoffs would begin Friday, Oct. 24. Last year, the Gaels reached the eight-player postseason for the first time.