The SHS baseball team is getting all new facilities for the 2016 season. Holder Field, where both the Cards and Perry Meridian High School Falcons play their home games, is located at Mary Bryan Elementary. Holder Field has had many problems with drainage that has led to a numerous amount of games being cancelled over the past several years.
Many games or tournaments have been cancelled over the years, so the main priority of the renovations is to fix the drainage of the new field. Coach Scott Whitlock hopes that the new drainage renovations will help with how the field drains.
“I know they brought in several hundred tons of dirt, to give it a natural drainage flow. They put in a drainage system in the entire outfield,” Whitlock said.
According to Whitlock, there have been seasons where the Cards played fewer than four games at Holder Field. Whitlock says that there was one year where SHS and Perry didn’t get to play a varsity match against each other due to the cancellations because of the field being flooded.
Not only has the flooding of the field affected the school’s team, but it also has affected a handful of summer tournaments that were hosted.
“We were constantly out there soaking water up for summer tournaments that we were trying to host as a fundraiser. I am really hoping that we can pretty much just rake it out and fill in the holes and be ready to go,” Whitlock said.
Another improvement for the baseball team is a new indoor hitting facility that is being built here at SHS. The Cards will have access to an indoor hitting facility donated by Jim Hernandez, from Southport Little League, to practice on days that are cold or rainy. Hernandez was closing the hitting facility, but asked Whitlock if he would like to have it as a donation. Sophomore Dallas Matlock thinks that the new indoor hitting facility will help the team get in some extra work.
“(It helps the team by) being able to go in there and hit, get some extra hits, get some extra cuts or whatever… get some extra throws,” Matlock said.
The baseball team will have a fully renovated field to play on and a new hitting facility to practice on for the new season.
Whitlock says he hopes that all the renovations will be completed during spring break so the Cards are ready to kick off the new season of baseball when the time comes.