LEWISTOWN — The start of the high school spring sports season is still weeks away, but the Mifflin County Huskies have already suffered a loss to some unexpected competition.
With the inclement winter weather, Mother Nature has caused construction delays that will impact facilities for the baseball, softball, track and field and lacrosse teams, which scheduled to be the first teams to christen the new $18.5 million state-of-the-art Husky Multi-Sports Facilities Project.
Those plans have changed dramatically as school officials are scrambling to find places for teams to practice and play regular-season games until their new fields are ready to go.
“Most likely, due to the poor weather conditions, baseball and softball will have to be inside,” Mifflin County High School Athletic Director Tish Maclay said. “No outside fields are considered to be “playable” at this point.
“We are exploring our options of backloading our schedules for baseball and softball,” Maclay added. “Track and field meets have already been moved to all away meets this season.”
That’s right, if Husky fans want to see Mifflin County’s Carter Smith, the current PIAA champion in the 800-meter race, they will have to hit the road to do so.
While the schedule changes are unfortunate, coaches say practicing indoors won’t totally take their team out of their element. Weather has impacted their ability to practice outside in prior campaigns.
Today is the first day that the PIAA allows spring sports teams to practice.
“It’s pretty common to have to practice inside in March a lot of times anyway,” Huskies baseball head coach Ray Hoppel said. “So from that perspective, we pretty much are accustomed to indoor practices in March. Finding another outdoor location is the tricky part.”
Mifflin County softball head coach Craig Weston agreed, “Hopefully we can find a field that we can utilize until our field is ready.”
School officials don’t have a timeline for when that might happen for the renovated baseball and softball fields. They are hoping sooner rather than later but are making no promises.
Mifflin County School District Superintendent of Schools Vance Varner said the best scenario to get the facilities ready would be to have one or two weeks of nice weather and warmer temperatures at the beginning of March.
“There have been some delays with the Multi-Sports Facilities Project,” Varner said. “We need some warmer weather for the ground to thaw and then the construction pace can pick back up.
“The hope is to have the baseball and softball teams have access to their fields in April,” Varner added. “Both of these fields need some compaction work and new sod installed in the areas adjacent to the turf infields.”
The track and field teams won’t be as fortunate as their new home, Marcal Paper Field, is still an active construction site and is not available for student use at this point, Varner said.
The Huskies’ boys and girls lacrosse teams will use athletic fields at Mifflin County Middle School in Lewistown until Marcal Paper Field is ready.
Junior high soccer will play at Lewistown Intermediate School and Mitchell Field for the time being.
Track and field could be practicing at numerous sites as officials are “developing a plan for areas throughout the district to be used for the track and field teams to practice,” Varner said. “Right now, we could use warm sunny days with limited rain to help this project to pick up some speed.”