Roanoke, Va. – The " let them play” movement in Southwest Virginia reached Roanoke County on Tuesday.
A number of surrounding counties -Alleghany and Montgomery, for instance -- remain on hold.
But Botetourt is back, and now Roanoke County joins them.
Roanoke County voted 4 to 1 this afternoon to return to play, within the county only.
With full practice beginning tomorrow and an 8-day run-up practice plan before games, the news spread quickly to our area
squads.
At the home of the Vikings, legendary head coach Bill Pope and his Northside high troops were getting in some conditioning ahead of tomorrow’s green light. Both coach and his team are equally excited about getting back on track to a competitive season.
“We’ll want to compete hard, I know we will,” Coach Pope said. “We’ll just see where it goes but the first thing is to not get ahead of ourselves. Try to do what we’re supposed to do to try to stay safe and all the protocols put in place and hopefully that happens first and we can take it a day at a time and then we go through this and have some fun with this, enjoy it and get better and compete. we like to compete,” Pope says.
“You have to count your blessings, " Vikings senior Jamison Foley says. “As long as we get to play any type of game I’m happy with that if we have to play the same team 27 times this year, I’ll do that for sure,” explained Foley
Based on information discussed at the Roanoke County school board meeting, playing an intercounty schedule will be enough to qualify for the playoffs.