After confusion entering opening day, Mattoon won’t be playing in the EI League this year. A squad from there had planned on joining the league this summer, making for easy scheduling with eight teams broken down into two four-team divisions. But its head coach is leaving the Mattoon area and not all the players originally slated to play could join, so it backed out, leaving the EI brass none too pleased with the withdrawal just days before what was the May 20 opening day.

All games scheduled against Mattoon will be considered forfeits this season (Royals and Paxton have picked up two wins apiece already). That provides an advantage to South Division members Gifford-Flatville, Royal and Central Illinois, which all were scheduled to play Mattoon four times. North Division members were only scheduled to play Mattoon twice apiece.

The reason for not going back to last year’s 24-game, seven-team schedule in which every squad played the others four times each is because league members didn’t want to play Saturday games.