After tomorrow night, Central High School’s varsity football team will have played on five different nights of the week during the 2018 season. This is highly unusual and was not at all in the original plans for the year, as all of the Chargers’ games had been slated for Fridays.

Inclement and rainy weather has led to the rearrangement of the schedule, a rearrangement which has reached its feverish peak in the stretch of games Central currently finds itself.

The season began with three straight contests played at their originally scheduled times under the “Friday Night Lights.”

Then came the threat of Hurricane Florence in mid-September. To avoid that and still get its game in against visiting Buckingham, Central moved its game up to Wednesday, Sept. 12. The Chargers ended up winning 14-7 in overtime.

Central then played three more games at their originally scheduled times before Tropical Storm Michael made a significant impact, forcing the postponement of the Chargers’ Friday, Oct. 12, game against visiting Prince Edward.

The Chargers played at Amelia on Friday, Oct. 19, and this was the last game they have played at its originally scheduled time.

They finally faced Prince Edward on Tuesday, Oct. 23, winning 36-22. Then they edged out visiting Nottoway 21- 20 in overtime this past Saturday, and they host Cumberland in a first-round regional playoff game Thursday at 7 p.m.

Chargers Head Coach Will Thomas reflected on once again having fewer days than normal to prepare for the next opponent.

“Oh, yeah, we’re used to it, man,” he said. “I remember when somebody had a shirt printed: ‘Friday Night Lights.’ I don’t know, man, they need to change that shirt, because we don’t play on Friday that much.”

A football season has normal obstacles to overcome, and they are often formidable, but frequent scheduling changes become obstacles that are relatively unforeseen.

“We never let that really bother us, which is awesome,” said Thomas, whose team started 0-3 and finished the regular season at 6-4. “Usually, I’m a routine kind of guy. I love my routine. I don’t like changing it, and the kids usually do better with a routine too. But hey, we’ve just kind of embraced the fact that who knows, man; we come in on Monday, who knows when we’re going to move the game to.”

Titus Mohler is the sports editor for The Kenbridge-Victoria Dispatch and Farmville Newsmedia, LLC. His email address is Titus.Mohler@ KVDispatch.com.