By RYAN ARENA

Sports Editor

While Hurricane Gustav wasn’t the worst-case scenario for the region that many feared, it still has made a casualty of much of the prep football season’s opening weekend.

All seven games involving River Region teams have been cancelled for this weekend, including:

  – Patterson at East. St. John

  – South Lafourche at St. Charles

  – Riverside at Pine

  – West. St. John at St. James

  – Karr at Destrehan

  – McDonogh #35 at Hahnville

  – Higgins at Lutcher

 In addition, the East St. John at Curtis game scheduled to be played next Thursday night at Tad Gormley Stadium has also been cancelled.

With athletes and coaches statewide still displaced in the latter stages of the past week, it became impossible to even consider going forward with games this weekend.

“I’ve getting calls from kids in Pensacola, Florida, from Jackson, Mississippi,” said East St. John Coach Larry Dauterive. “We’re not going to play unless we’ve got our kids back.”

Dauterive says the team will go forward with plans to open its season at Acadiana in the season’s third week. In this case, the coach says, its good that it’s a road game – authorities, including the National Guard, have been utilizing Joe Keller Field in the aftermath of Gustav.

Riverside, meanwhile, was still scheduled to play at Hanson next Friday night as of presstime. But Rebels Coach Tim Taffi concedes that it’s highly unlikely that the game will go on as scheduled. Hanson, based in Morgan City which was hit hard by Gustav and may not be ready to play for several weeks. Taffi said he still needed to speak to Hanson officials to confirm.

If the game were cancelled, Taffi says he would look to find another opponent for his team.

“We’ve got to play,” he said. “I’m sure there will be teams in a similar situation. We’re going to have to try to hustle up a game.”