Football: Hamza Clay, Chichester literally play lights out in first half against Radnor

UPPER CHICHESTER — The Chris Craig coaching era at Chichester was off to a brilliant start Friday, the Eagles exploding for 20 first-half points while getting a career-night kind of game from Hamza Clay, who picked off two Radnor passes, one of them a fade in the end zone, and also hauled in a one-handed scoring catch.

But while the Eagles turned out the lights on their opponent in the first two quarters en route to a 20-0 lead, they were unable to turn on the lights in one of the four light standards, and that created an eerie situation.

It left officials, coaches and players on the verge of guessing what to do in the darker area with the faulty lights, and in the name of safety for both players and fans, the game was called around 8:15 p.m.

The contest is tentatively slated to continue here Sunday at 11 a.m. with the third and fourth quarters, which is the best the parties could do on short notice. Obviously, it won’t make it any easier for the Eagles to get ready for their game next Thursday at Penncrest, or the Raptors to prepare for their home opener next Friday versus Central League foe Marple Newtown.

“The lights didn’t come back on in that far end zone and the 20-yard line,” official John McCarry said. “So, the decision was made by the athletic directors and coaches that they’re going to finish the game here Sunday. Had they been able to get the lights to come back on, or if they were able to say PECO was 10 minutes away, here was a chance.”

The PECO option obviously wasn’t successful. Additionally, there were concerns that rebooting the system could have knocked out all the lights, and that could have created chaos among fans trying to exit. Strange as the situation was, an announcement was made, spectators departed in an orderly fashion and the only real question was, will tickets be honored Sunday? Craig laughed and said that would be taken care of.

“Matter of fact, we might just leave the gates open,” Craig said. “The problem was one-fourth of the field, one corner of the field, the lights didn’t work. The refs gave us a lengthy halftime to kind of wait it out. (PECO) couldn’t get here and get it fixed in time, so they pushed everything to Sunday morning. Has anything like this happened to me? Never. But there are other things that come into play. There are SATs on Saturday. There’s a JV that was supposed to happen on Saturday. We couldn’t really play it on Monday.”

Radnor coach Kyle Yeiter was just as taken aback by the suspended game as Craig.

“It’s weird,” Yeiter said. “But that wasn’t a factor at all in the game. (Chi) just came out and made some plays. And shoot, those were great interceptions by (Clay). That touchdown catch he looked like Odell Beckham out there. We were moving the ball, but we’d get inside the 15-yard line and stall.”

Yeiter was told the lights were tested this week, and there’s not much you can do when they don’t work.

“I talked to coach and it’s obviously not his fault,” Yeiter said. “We’re going to figure out the rest of it. I’m not 100 percent sure (on Sunday) right now. We’ve got to figure that out for sure. I’ve never been a part of something like this before.”