Now it’s an annual thing.

Lightning postponed Friday night’s Lawrence High-Shawnee Mission North football game at Haskell Stadium. The teams will play at 7 tonight at Haskell.

Three of the Lions’ 2001 games were postponed.

“We were 3-0 last year when the games got rained out,” LHS coach Dirk Wedd said. “Maybe it’s meant to be.”

The storm cloud’s silver lining is that LHS has extra time for its players to get healthy. Lawrence is without senior Brian Seymour, but juniors Brett Urban and Taylor Parker, who had nasty bouts with the flu earlier this week, could contribute. They’re the Lions’ starting cornerbacks. Junior tight end Josh Lawrence, who was injured during Thursday’s practice, could also play, though he’ll be a game-time decision.

“It gives those kids another night to sleep and get healthy,” Wedd said. “Urban and Parker might have a chance to play.”

Today’s LHS junior varsity game was canceled.

With rain in the forecast, tonight’s game time wasn’t easy to choose. Kansas University plays Southwest Missouri State at Memorial Stadium at 6 p.m., but neither team wanted to play early in the morning, and the Haskell Indian Nations University football team has a 1 p.m. kickoff.

“Obviously we do not want to interfere with that,” LHS athletic director Ron Commons said. “The challenge now will be to get a hold of the league and make sure we can get officials for tomorrow.”

Though the Lions were nursing injuries, they didn’t mind the rainy weather. Their offense features one of the Sunflower League’s best running games, racking up 270 yards in last week’s 34-20 win against Leavenworth.

“We like to run the football. The mud’s not going to hurt us,” Wedd said.

Depending on how long Haskell plays, the LHS-SMN might not start at 7. But Commons thinks kickoff will be near then.

“If things don’t start exactly at 7, they’ll be awfully close,” he said.