Spring has sprung and fields are ready for play

4/17/08

By Andrew R. Koch
Sports Editor

A true sign of spring has finally arrived on the LSC campus, as most of this year’s snow pack has finally been cleared off the athletic fields.

The school’s preparation for spring sports was greatly aided by the late arrival of warmer weather during last week’s spring break. According to Athletic Director Chris Ummer, the fields are about two weeks behind schedule in terms of being ready for spring sports.

“If this warm-up had happened two weeks ago, we’d be in very good shape,” Ummer said. He added that because of this later-than-normal warm-up, all four spring sports will have to play all their home games within the next week and a half.

Rescheduling games and locations hasn’t been such a big problem, according to Ummer. The problem is when the new dates have to be rescheduled.

“When you have to reschedule your reschedules, that’s when things get tricky,” Ummer said. That can lead to frustration among some of the players.

“It’s the seniors who feel the frustration (of being unable to play) the most,” Ummer said.

One sport that has had a particularly rough time scheduling home games is lacrosse, which is back at Lyndon State after a 23-year hiatus. Ummer said that finding 12 games for the teams was relatively easy. Getting enough of those games at home is proving to be the hard part.

“It’s been difficult to get a balanced home schedule. We’ve had a couple home games played elsewhere,” Ummer said. One such “home” game was supposed to be the team’s home opener, which ended up being played at Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire because the field here wasn’t ready. As the schedule stands right now, it appears the lacrosse team will only have two home games this season.

Lyndon State isn’t the only school here in Vermont that’s facing this type of situation. Schools such as Norwich, Green Mountain College, Vermont Tech and others are also having problems with games being postponed, cancelled or even relocated. Schools in Maine and New Hampshire are also facing those same issues.

Physical Plant Director Tom Archer said that the maintenance department has done everything it can to prepare the fields given the circumstances. One problem the department has faced is that because the snow came early this year, the ground didn’t have a chance to freeze.

“That’s a bad thing because you can’t put heavy equipment on the field,” Archer said. He added that maintenance had hired help from an outside source to clear off the baseball and softball diamonds, but the tractor that was being used ran into a couple of problems.

First, a part on the machine broke, and took nearly two weeks to replace. Then, when the tractor was able to get back on the field, it started to make impressions in the soft ground. Archer said that the person was told to get off immediately if the tractor started making impressions on the field.

Archer says that it would be great to get artificial turf for the fields, but money would be the only issue.

“Who knows where you can find the funding, but it would be in the dream to get artificial turf,” Archer said.

The Hornets will look to open their spring season on Sunday, when the softball team is scheduled to play a doubleheader against Plymouth State starting at 1 p.m.