TROY — The Troy City School District is moving Friday night's Troy High varsity football game against Albany High to Saturday afternoon, a decision that comes in the wake of a melee in the Collar City last month that followed a night home game with another high school team from Albany.

"This decision was made out of an abundance of caution based on the advice from both Troy and Albany police departments regarding their concern about the ongoing rift between the youths in the two cities," Troy school district Superintendent John Carmello said Wednesday in a prepared statement.

"Our first and foremost priority is, and always will be, the safety and security of our students," he wrote. "We will continue to work with law enforcement and make decisions with their safety in mind."

Friday's game was originally scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. The game will instead start at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Carmello met Tuesday with representatives of the Troy and Albany police to discuss safety concerns. Troy Deputy Police Chief Dan DeWolf said the departments had intelligence regarding teenagers from the two cities who weren't necessarily students at the high schools.

The continuing division between some teenagers in Albany and Troy led to the recommendations to change kickoff time as a precautionary step, DeWolf said.

The decision comes after police raised concerns that spectators at a night game earlier this season led to an off-campus confrontation. The melee happened after Troy High's 42-0 defeat of Albany's Green Tech High Charter School on Friday, Sept. 27. Troy typically plays its football games on Friday night.

Police, aware of tensions between teens from the two cities, had suggested moving that game to 1 p.m. that Saturday, Sept. 28, to avoid any incidents. However, the Troy City School District opted to stick with the tradition of the Friday night game as part of its weeklong schedule of homecoming events, with extra security added at the high school campus on Burdett Avenue.

There were no problems at the high school football stadium at the homecoming game, where police and school officials were out in force and extra lights were deployed to brighten dark parking lots.

But after the game ended, about 70 teenagers faced off more than a mile away from the Troy High School campus in a fast food restaurant on Hoosick Street. That led to a general melee in which patrol officers used a pepper spray to disburse the crowd. No arrests were made.

At the time, Troy Police Chief Brian Owens said he'd leave it to the district to decide whether to move this week's game. Owens said the police department was prepared to handle a melee similar to the one that unfolded after the night game against Green Tech if necessary.