It was a rollercoaster ride last week for the DeKalb County Tigers Football Team after a Covid-19 diagnosis looked to end their season, and their top seed spot in the playoffs. The news had players and fans on the verge of heartbreak, but a reprieve came later in the week, with an announcement that the playoffs would go on.

Coming off the Tigers' win over longtime rival Macon County, which sealed DeKalb's first regional title in school history, the team was riding high. The win even earned the team the Titan's Game of the Week, as well a the Titan's Coach of the Week for Coach Steve Trapp. The Tigers had secured the top seed, and a home game, for the playoffs.

Then, news that a player had tested positive for coronavirus. With that, the final regular season game against Cumberland County, a home game scheduled as Senior Night, was canceled, and the playoff game the following week was in jeopardy.

As news spread, hearts sank at the prospect that the opportunity the team had worked so hard for through the regular season might become yet another victim of the Covid-19 pandemic. But, it was the precautions the team had put in place at the beginning of the year that seemed to have saved the postseason.

"The TSSAA provides the opportunity to play sports," Tigers Head Coach Steve Trapp told the Smithville Review. "To participate, with everything that is going on, ultimately comes down to your local school system."

"Basically, what happened was we were able to contact trace within the football program, the same way that they do inside of the school building. A big factor was the way that we practice. We separate all of our position groups, and by varsity level and junior varsity level. We did contact trace, based off of the one positive test that we had, and we do have some players in quarantine."

Coach Trapp said that while only one player tested positive, he was only in contact with his group and not in contact with any of the varsity starters for the team. "The group that is in quarantine will be out until at least November 10th. The biggest thing that we want everyone to understand is that if we felt this was an unsafe situation for anybody, then we wouldn't have done it. The safety of everybody involved was at the forefront of everything."

"We've been talking about motivation and gratefulness all year," Coach Trapp said. "After this I think we should see a very grateful and motivated team back out there on that field. We are truly grateful to have the opportunity to play, and I'm appreciative of all the people that have come together with a common goal, and supported our team."

The Region 3, Class 4A champion Tigers (6-3, 3-0) will host Spring Hill (3-7, 2-3), the 4th place team in Region 4, this Friday night at home. Coach Trapp also wants to remind fans that tickets for all 2020 playoff games will be sold exclusively via the GoFan digital ticket platform (https://gofan.co/tssaa). Tickets must be presented on a smartphone at the gate and validated/redeemed by the gate attendant. Tickets will go on sale to the general public Tuesday at Noon central time at https://tssaasports.com/sports/football/playoffs/. Coach Trapp said that tickets are first come, first serve.

The first round of the TSSAA play-offs is this Friday night, at 7:00 pm.