Weather Delay for Turf Work At Wheeling Park High School
Derek Redd Trending
WHEELING -- High school baseball games often are hampered by cold, wet weather in the spring, but this year the first games at Wheeling Park High School may be played elsewhere due to warmer, soggy conditions this winter.
The ground is just too wet to place a planned new turf on the field, school officials say.
"It's not drying out," said Rick Jones, assistant superintendent of Ohio County Schools. "We are at the point we just need four days of dry weather to harden the ground.
"The gravel goes down first. If we can get consecutively four days of dry weather, we can get it down."
The WPHS baseball team is scheduled to have its first game March 15, and is set to host University High.
Jones added if the turf is not down in time for the first home games of the season, there will be attempts to work with the visiting team to flip flop the schedule and play early games at their fields. WPHS then would host them later in the season.
A second alternative would be to arrange to play games at either the I-470 ballpark or at West Liberty University.
"But it may not have to happen at all," Jones said. "If we get lucky and a few good days of good weather, we can get that turf down. It won't take them very long.
"The fencing is going up, and everything else is real. It's just that the ground has to be not so soft. We're at a standstill until they can get the turf laid, but it can be raining and they can lay turf."
The new turf is replacing natural grass on the baseball field.
Last August, the Ohio County Board of Education approved a $1.5 million contract with Astroturf to place turf on the field. The money was paid from the school district's general budget, and is not part of the $42.2 million in bond work approved by voters in 2018.