The Baldwin Highlander football team came out of a two-week quarantine with a practice Saturday as they began gearing up for Friday’s away game against Norwin. 

“It was good to finally practice after being off for two weeks,” senior Connor Lavelle said. “It was a pretty rusty practice we had on Saturday, since no one could do anything for that period of (quarantine) time.”

After the Highlanders opened the season with a non-section win over Hollidaysburg, the team had to shut down and go into a 14-day quarantine when an assistant coach tested positive for COVID-19. The team missed big games against North Allegheny and Canon-Mac.

“It really sucks not being able to play those two teams,” Lavelle said, because they were big section games. “There’s nothing we can really do about it now.”

Senior Dorien Ford recognizes the impact that taking two weeks off may have on their season overall. 

“It was really upsetting to lose the chance to play two great teams,” Ford said. “If we don’t win the majority of our upcoming games, we might not make it to the playoffs.” 

Now, the team instead is focusing on what it can control, which starts with Friday’s game against Norwin.

“They have more numbers than us and it’s going to be a physical game, but we need to go 100 percent the whole time,” Lavelle said. 

The Highlanders will be using this week to make sure they are ready.

“We’ve had some minor setbacks from taking so much time off,” Ford said. “We’re struggling with conditioning since we haven’t been able to run for a while, but I think the coaches will get us back in shape for Friday.” 

Lavelle agreed. 

“We had the disadvantage of not being able to do anything physically” in quarantine, Lavelle said. “We need to get back in shape this week.”