Storms delay, postpone North Texas high school football games

High schools around North Texas made alternative plans for their football games with more rain in the forecast for Friday.

Many games also had to be canceled last week. Teams can play in the rain, but the game has to stop when there is lightning.

It wasn’t even 6 p.m. yet on Friday and players from Arlington Heights and Trimble Tech were already warming up.

The game was scheduled at Farrington Field, and staff and parents say they got the word late Friday afternoon that the 7:30 p.m. game would instead have a 6:30 p.m.

But despite the approaching storms, it was moved back to 7:30 p.m. and then eventually up to 7:15 p.m.

Fort Worth ISD assistant athletic director Dean Pritchett monitored lightning strikes and the storm's track.

Of the three big football games the district hosted, only one was moved up an hour earlier.

“And we're actually down on the field with them with our monitors, and once we see that that lightning is about 10 miles to the stadium, we're right there and we're grabbing that official and we're saying, ‘We've gotta get off the field right now for everybody's safety,” said Pritchett.

Around 7:15 p.m., with storms less than an hour away, Friday night football was underway at Farrington Field.

But just after 7:30 p.m., with three minutes left in the first quarter, things came to a screeching halt.

Parents waited underneath the stands for the rain to pass, and others went straight for the concession stand.

Some parents here were frustrated, saying that if the game would have stuck to the earlier start time, the delay might have been during halftime, rather than the first quarter.

The game was eventually postponed until Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

For this week, all games in District 6 and 10 in Class 6A were moved to Thursday instead of Friday.