Mendota’s season ends early due to COVID-19 protocols

Just as the Mendota football team began building some positive momentum, the Trojans’ season came to a premature end Thursday.

Due to a Rock Falls player testing positive for COVID-19, all Mendota players who participated in the game against the Rockets on April 9 are quarantined for two weeks, forcing the cancelation of Mendota’s final two games of the season.

Mendota was scheduled to play Dixon on Saturday and Genoa-Kingston on April 23.

“The administration told me first. It’s just a punch in the stomach,” MHS coach Keegan Hill said. “We collected as many players as we could to tell them at the same time. It was no fun. But it speaks to the value of sports. We have something to look forward to when we get to do sports. All those end of season feelings you’d have in a Week 9 or whenever the season ends, they were all thrown at you at the same time.”

The Trojans opened the season with a 49-7 loss to North Boone then fell 30-26 to Oregon in Week 2 before snapping a 20-game home losing streak with a 42-28 victory over Rock Falls.

“Our mission is to improve every week,” Hill said. “Coming off an absolute wild ride of getting rescheduled and canceled and rescheduled and finally getting to play, we played North Boone. It was wild and crazy and we had first game stuff going on. We went toe to toe with Oregon. We cleaned up a lot of stuff from the North Boone game. Then we got a chance to play Rock Falls and cleaned up a lot of stuff we didn’t do against Oregon and played well enough to win.

“We were excited to play Dixon on Saturday. We had the best grades we’ve had all season. Everybody is healthy. Our guys are making good choices. We had a lot of positive things trending in the right direction.”

With only two seniors in the program — Andres Castaneda and Derek Nanez — the Trojans hope to carry the momentum into the fall season.

“We’re showing what we’re capable of and showing we’re proud of our program,” Hill said. “We’re going to get back to that, but before we do, we have to make sure everybody is safe physically and mentally and following the rules. Once we get that, we’ll get back to business.”