THOMASVILLE — With Tropical Storm Fay sticking around south Georgia on Saturday, there was no doubt about the status of Thomas County Central’s scrimmage at Lowndes.

“The obvious. We’re not playing,” Central coach Bill Shaver said Saturday afternoon about the cancellation of the preseason tilt between the Class AAAA No. 2 Yellow Jackets and Class AAAAA No. 1 Vikings.

With the scrimmage washed out, Central heads into Friday’s season opener at Thomasville without a dress rehearsal. Shaver admitted that the opportunity to face the Vikings would have been a benefit, the Jackets are no different than most south Georgia teams in missing out on a scrimmage.

“Well, you’d obviously like to get it to get a little bit of the nerves out and just give the kids the chance to play somebody,” Shaver said. “But everybody’s kind of in the same boat that tried to scrimmage this week, I don’t think anybody got one in.

“There were a few of them had the foresight to play Thursday, and then, of course, Cairo got theirs last week. But, not many people are going to have had a scrimmage, so we’re all in the same boat.”

Thomasville called off its scrimmage against Westover on Friday afternoon.

Despite the letdown of not playing, Shaver saw the positive of resting until the opener — a chance for improved health after some good news this past week on a pair of injured Yellow Jackets.

“We got some good news on one of them the other day,” he said. “Reshard Cliett is OK to play now. He got cleared and Phillip (William)’s hamstring is getting a lot better, so it may be a blessing in disguise. We didn’t have to play and get anybody else hurt and we’re getting a few of those other guys a little bit well.”