“It was the right thing to do,” Oak Harbor High School football coach Jay Turner said in regard to his team forfeiting Friday’s game with Marysville-Pilchuck.

The two schools were primed to meet for the Wesco 3A North title Friday evening at Wildcat Memorial Stadium.

That all changed Friday morning when a freshman football player at Marysville-Pilchuck shot five others, killing two, before killing himself.

Turner soon met with his coaching staff, and it was clear just minutes into a meeting, with all agreeing, that offering to forfeit was the correct path.

Turner, a 1990 Marysville-Pilchuck graduate, then met with Oak Harbor High School Athletic Director Nicki Luper, who was “100 percent” behind the decision.

Next came a call to Marysville-Pilchuck coach Brandon Carson.

“We wanted to give them every option, including not playing the game,” Turner said. “With all that they were going through, we wanted to do whatever they needed.

“I told him, ‘We will do whatever you need to do. I don’t want you to have to worry about a game when you are worrying about the kids and what they are going through.'”

In addition, a group of Oak Harbor players traveled to Marysville Friday evening to show their support, visiting a Marysville-Pilchuck team meeting.

“They decided to do that on their own,” Turner said. “I didn’t know about it until about 10 minutes before they left.”

He added, “That shows you the caliber of our kids.”

Oak Harbor’s gesture of conceding the game has received national attention, with praise cropping up on radio, television and the Internet.

“It wasn’t our intent that it got out there, or to become what it has become,” Turner said. “The big thing is to keep the focus on Marysville-Pilchuck.”

Not everyone was pleased with the forfeit. Some posts in social media criticized the decision.

Even before playing Friday’s would-be game, both Marysville-Pilchuck and Oak Harbor qualified for the playoffs.

By forfeiting, Oak Harbor finished second in the Wesco North and will host Mountlake Terrace, the second-place team from the South, at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31, in a seeding game.

The winner will be the No. 3 seed out of the Western Conference and host the Seamount League champion in a quad-district game Nov. 7 or 8. The loser will travel to play the second-place team from the Narrows League.

Marysville-Pilchuck will host Meadowdale, the South champion, to determine the first and second seeds.