Two Goshen County schools (Torrington, Lingle) forfeit Week 1 football games

Both Lingle and Torrington have forfeited their Week 1 football games, to Wind River and Douglas respectively.

Lingle forfeited its game to Wind River on Thursday; Torrington forfeited its game to Douglas on Friday morning.

Lingle activities director Mike Lashley, when reached by email by wyoming-football.com Thursday, declined to elaborate on the reasons for Lingle’s forfeit, saying only that the Doggers could not field a team this week.

A Torrington High School Facebook post on Friday said the forfeiture was due to “injuries and illness.” Torrington activities director Gabe Bartlett reiterated that in an email to wyoming-football.com on Friday, citing both factors as the reason for the forfeit.

“Just not enough students to safely play the game,” Bartlett wrote.

Also on Thursday, the Goshen County school board voted 5-4 to mandate masks in the schools. The school district website said 189 students were in COVID-19 quarantine across the district, and that 19 active cases of COVID-19 were present among students or staff.

The Goshen County school district spans Torrington, Lingle, Southeast and LaGrange schools. The district had 1,606 students in K-12 last fall, according to the Wyoming Department of Education’s annual enrollment count.

The third of three Goshen County football teams, Southeast, will play its scheduled game today at Shoshoni, the Torrington Telegram’s Andrew Towne reported on Twitter. Lingle and Southeast are both Class 1A nine-man programs, while Torrington competes in Class 2A.

In all, five Wyoming high school football games have now ended in either forfeiture or cancellation. Burns and Thermopolis lost their Week 1 games due to COVID-19, while St. Stephens cited injury and eligibility issues in a Wednesday school Facebook post as its reason for forgoing its Friday game against Lusk.

Note: This story was updated at 11:04 a.m. MDT Friday with comments from Bartlett. This story will be updated as necessary when, or if, new information becomes available.

–patrick