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Injury-riddled Brooks forfeits to Belmont Hill

NORTH ANDOVER — With eight starters — including all three captains — on the injury list, a depleted Brooks School football team decided to cancel its game with Independent School League power Belmont Hill this afternoon.

Brooks coach Alex Konovalchik said he and school officials reluctantly made the call to Belmont Hill, which improves to 5-0 with today's forfeit.

"The last thing we want to do is cancel a game," said Konovalchik. "It was a very difficult decision. But at the end of the day, we simply had too many injured players to compete in a varsity football game."

Brooks, now 0-5 with the loss, lost two captains on opening night and then in its second game it lost quarterback Tucker White. According to Konovalchik, Brooks was left with only eight varsity players among the 21 varsity players. The JV team also has been hit hard with injuries, losing a pair of two-way starters last week.

In a statement from Brooks, it noted the "insufficient numbers to compete at the varsity level."

In a statement from Belmont Hill, school officials accepted "with regret" Brooks request for cancellation: "Both schools value the spirited competition we enjoy in many sports, and we understand that the accumulation of injuries led Brooks to make the decision not to play a game this weekend."

After a 7-2 season in 2009 in which Brooks made it to the championship game, losing to Pingree, 7-6, the North Andover school went winless last season. Brooks lost 19-2 to Rivers last week and has been outscored 126-34 in the four games.

Konovalchik said he hopes and expects that the injury situation will improve over the next few days and that Brooks will be able to play Governor's Academy, which is 4-0, next Saturday.