MANSFIELD, Ohio — Mother Nature must not be a high school baseball or softball fan.
Monday night’s unexpected snow storm dropped about an inch of fresh powder on already saturated ball fields and with more rain in the forecast, Saturday’s season openers are in serious jeopardy.
“We’re planning to play on opening day,” Clear Fork athletic director Ben Bethea said optimistically. “There’s always a chance.”
The Colts’ baseball team is scheduled to open the season at Fredericktown on Saturday. The softball team doesn’t open until Monday at Triway.
Another unusually harsh and cold winter is threatening to make life difficult for Bethea and his fellow athletic directors. Fields had been buried under a foot of snow and ice only until recently and the melt-off has made things a little sloppy in the early stages of the spring. Area schools caught a break last week when the weather warmed enough for teams to practice outside.
“We were able to scrimmage on the baseball and softball fields,” Ontario AD Chris Miller said. “The problem is that temperatures warm up during the day but still drop below freezing at night. You start the season playing on a partially frozen field and storms like the one that came through Monday certainly don’t help matters.”
At Madison, both the baseball and softball programs have taken advantage of the football field’s artificial playing surface.
“The turf has been a blessing,” softball coach Tim Niswander said. “We were able to go out on the football field for fielding drills for a week-and-a-half before we could get on the softball field.”
Sketchy early-season weather is nothing new to north central Ohio. ADs have become accustomed to the headaches that come with rescheduling.
“It comes with the territory,” Miller said. “We print pocket schedules each spring and people can’t wait to get them, but they are getting the skeleton of a schedule.
“There are so many early-season games that get rescheduled that toward the end of the season, if the sun is out there is a good chance we’ll be playing.”
“We were able to scrimmage on the baseball and softball fields,” Ontario AD Chris Miller said. “The problem is that temperatures warm up during the day but still drop below freezing at night.
