It’s called the “mercy clock” for a reason.

You are supposed to show mercy.

Apparently, that message isn’t registering with a few high school football programs. Last weekend, there were two such cases involving area teams in the playoffs.

Thursday night in Clarion, Karns City took on Perry Traditional Academy in a District 9/8 sub-regional game. The Gremlins had a 41-6 lead at halftime, putting the PIAA’s mercy rule — a running clock once a team has a 35-point lead or more at halftime or later — into effect.

Karns City allowed its junior varsity to play the second half that night. Good move.

Perry only had a 32-man roster, so the Commodores couldn’t be faulted for playing whoever they wanted. But at that point, just play the game out.

Instead, Perry would repeatedly score and onside kick. Karns City’s JV squad ran eight offensive plays in the second half.

Eight.

One can argue that Perry never gave up, that the idea is to keep fighting until the end. While there is credence to that point of view, reality says the game is over. By trying to run up points against a JV unit, Perry could have incited Karns City coach Ed Conto to put his first-team unit back in — with some bad blood.

To KC’s credit, that didn’t happen.

In the true spirit of high school athletics, Perry should have tried to score when it had the ball, kick off, play defense, try to get the ball back. Continual onside kicks are pointless.

But that situation was not as bad as what Meadville did against Grove City in the District 10 Class 5A title game last Saturday night in Greenville.

The Bulldogs had the game well in hand in the third quarter. But even with less than two minutes to play in the contest — when taking a knee would have easily ended the game — Meadville had its first team offense on the field running plays.

Why?

The team’s two top running backs, Journey Brown and Isaiah Manning, were both shaken up earlier in the game. Both injuries occurred well after the outcome was decided.

Both came back in.

Again, why?

Meadville rolled up 67 points and won by 40.

Congratulations.

In the meantime, the Bulldogs had a number of underclassmen running backs standing on the sidelines who probably would have loved to see some action.

No, it’s not Little League, but in a high school game with such a lopsided score in any sport, every kid on the team should play at some point.

Not on this night.

It’s hard to understand the thinking of coaches at times when it comes to this stuff.

You know the saying in high school sports: Sportsmanship — The only missing piece is you.

Well, sometimes it’s them.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle