The biggest high school football game Nassau County has staged in years now kicks off on a Monday. Section VIII, the body that governs county school sports, pushed Saturday's Garden City-Massapequa showdown to Monday, September 28, at 5 p.m. once the weekend nor'easter made a Saturday kickoff unsafe, and the delay cost the matchup nothing that matters. Garden City still arrives carrying a 68 game winning streak, the longest active run of any high school program in the country. Massapequa still arrives having won 25 in a row. Between them, the two teams have not lost a football game in a combined 93 tries.

A high school game in an 11,929 seat stadium

The venue tells you what kind of game this is. It was never scheduled for a high school field. The matchup was booked into Hofstra University's James M. Shuart Stadium, an 11,929 seat college facility in Hempstead, because the crowd both fan bases were expected to bring would swamp any bleachers either school owns. Tickets were sold in advance, and the Massapequa athletic department says every ticket purchased for Saturday will be honored at the gate on Monday.

The two programs occupy different corners of Nassau football. Massapequa, one of the county's biggest schools, plays in the top enrollment class; Garden City plays below it. The schedule almost never crosses them, which is exactly why this non league meeting was circled the day it appeared. Two towns that measure their falls by Friday results get one afternoon to settle an argument the standings never could.

What 93 straight wins look like

Garden City's streak has outlived the high school careers of the players who started it. Sixty eight consecutive wins is not just the best active run on Long Island or in New York; national scoreboard trackers list it as the longest of any program in the country. The Trojans went 11 and 0 last fall and opened this season the way they have opened every season for the better part of a decade, winning their first two games, the latest a 35 to 7 handling of MacArthur.

Massapequa's case for being the better team is not sentimental. The Chiefs have won 25 straight themselves, finished 12 and 0 last season, and took their third consecutive Long Island Class I championship with a 14 to 12 win over Ward Melville, a game decided by a defensive stand rather than a highlight reel. They are 2 and 0 this year and beat Syosset 37 to 7 last week. In the final statewide rankings after last season, both programs sat inside the top ten in New York, separated by two places.

The storm call

The decision to move the game came Friday afternoon. The Massapequa school district had told families a day earlier that the game remained on for Saturday but that Section VIII would make the final call in consultation with county emergency officials as the nor'easter tracked toward the Island. By Friday the forecast won. The district's athletic office announced the postponement to Monday and asked for patience, noting that player and spectator safety would decide the question. Given what the storm did to the South Shore over the weekend, flooded roads, downed trees, tens of thousands of outages, the call looks better every hour.

If you go

Kickoff is Monday at 5 p.m. at Shuart Stadium on Hofstra's campus in Hempstead. Tickets bought in advance are good at the gate, and anyone still hoping to attend should watch the two districts' athletics pages for word on remaining availability rather than showing up on hope alone. A 5 p.m. Monday start is an odd slot for a game this size, early enough that some fans will be leaving work as the teams warm up. It is also, in its way, the perfect test of what this matchup means to both towns: the stands will tell you exactly how many people found a way out of the office.

Whatever the count, somebody's streak does not survive the evening intact. That has not been true of a Garden City football game since the players now on the roster were in elementary school, and it is the reason a rescheduled high school game on a Monday afternoon is the most interesting sporting event on Long Island this week.