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Ferriday High School football had plans to take team pictures this Friday. Head coach Stanley Smith said another player had tested positive for COVID-19 Wednesday morning shutting down practice for 10 days.

The Trojans are a week removed from when they could resume practice after their first quarantine of the 2021 football season.

According to USA Facts, Concordia Parish has hit a weekly average of 27 COVID cases as of Aug. 9. Newly reported COVID cases in the parish spiked at 89 Monday. It is higher than the previous peak of 82 cases on Nov. 20, 2020.

“Concordia Parish is a hot spot right now,” Smith said. “Last year, this didn’t happen to us until the end of the season. Hopefully, we can get this out of the way now. We are just in the teaching phase, and that is more critical. We are teaching techniques and fundamentals, which is important.”

Last year, the Trojans missed football games but not early-season practices. Ferriday needs those practices this year because they are a younger team and in a rebuilding stage, he said.

COVID has now shut down 20 days the Trojans could have used to practice. Additionally, it cancels a scrimmage they had planned, he said. Their next scrimmage will be against Vidalia in a football Jamboree on Aug. 28, but they can not practice again until Aug. 21. They also have two assistant coaches out with COVID, he said.

“It is adversity, to say the least, but it builds character,” Smith said. “We are resilient, and once we can get back to work, we will be stronger.”

“It is very scary right now, it really is,” Smith said.