City and Borough of Juneau Parks & Recreation deemed Adair-Kennedy Memorial Park unfit for baseball games this weekend.
Thunder Mountain and Juneau-Douglas High School were scheduled for five head-to-head games — three varsity and two junior varsity — at the field on Friday and Saturday.
Adair-Kennedy’s dirt is still damp from the ice and snow that blanketed the field up until recently. Crews can’t sufficiently groom the field using the truck-powered drags and rakes until the dirt completely dries.
“We’re just waiting for the field to dry out,” Colby Schibler, park maintenance supervisor for Parks and Recreation, said. “Yesterday it was getting pretty close, but then this rain started. I don’t know when we’re going to be able to go back out there.”
The teams will make up the games on Monday, April 30, Monday, May 7, and Tuesday, May 15, according to JDHS athletic director and baseball coach Chad Bentz. Each day will feature a doubleheader with games at 4 and 7 p.m.
TMHS baseball coach Bill Macaulay informed his team of the news at Tuesday’s practice. He said the team was disappointed but quickly moved on from it.
“It’s like a game, something bad happens and you have to move on, you can’t dwell on it,” Macaulay said. “So we’re moving on. We’re going to try to make the most of our practices.”
Next weekend’s home baseball and softball games look much more promising, according to Schibler, and that’s also when Gastineau Channel Little League hosts its opening day (April 28).
“Our plan is to have everything available for opening day,” Schibler said.
JDHS baseball hosts Petersburg High School on Friday, April 27 and Saturday, April 28, at Adair Kennedy. Over on Dimond Park Field No. 4, the JDHS and TMHS softball teams will be playing in their home openers.
TMHS will play its next game against JDHS on April 30 before heading to Ketchikan for games on May 4-5.
The Region V baseball tournament is May 25-26 at Sitka’s Moller Field. The state baseball tournament is the following week at Anchorage’s Mulcahy Stadium.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com. Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports.
