Published Tuesday, April 08, 2008 7:56 AM
Updated Tuesday, April 08, 2008 7:57 AM
Mother Nature washed out last week's high school sports schedule with heavy rains.
Mother Nature 1, Everybody Else 0
Rain wreaks havoc on high school sportsIt’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.
The grand old lady threw a huge wrench into last week’s baseball and softball games, track meets, and soccer matches. Contests throughout the Lowcountry were postponed or canceled altogether because of the wet weather.
The week started off on a sour note when isolated thundershowers soaked an already saturated baseball and softball field at Timberland.
“The field was already in bad shape from the weekend and I had my planning period to take a rake to it,” said Lady Wolves softball coach Joy Elizondo. “We made the decision to call both baseball and softball games before school let out. A couple pockets of rain came through during the early afternoon and that was more than the field could take.”
Timberland was set to host Lake Marion in both softball and baseball last Monday night. Both games were canceled and rescheduled for later in the week. Following the rain and thunderstorms that swept into the area from up the coast, that game was scratched also.
“We could have played if we wanted to swim around the bases,” Elizondo said.
The rain and thunderstorms threw its biggest wrench into last week’s high school sports schedule on Wednesday afternoon as temperatures dropped more than 20 degrees in a little more than an hour.
The Lady Stags softball team was able to do nothing more than drive to Goose Creek to see their game with Stratford’s Lady Knights washed out. To date no makeup date has been set.
The starter gun sounded at the big Region 7-AAAA quad-meet at Berkeley HS with a cautious eye on the low wall of angry storm clouds rolling up from the South.
“We can start but you know we can’t run out here with all this metal and lightning in the area,” said Stags track coach. The girls finished 11 of the 17 events. I have a final score but it doesn’t really show how the meet would have ended.”
Event winners in the events they were able to complete before the rains came were Grace Butler in the discus, Sy’Asia Grant in the shot put, Leanna Morrison in the 100 meters and Kalib Law in the 1600 meters.
According to Gambrell the boys pole vault and the remaining running events including the 400 hurdles, the 200, 400, 800 and 3200 meter races and the 4x400 relay were scratched.
“We will not have a make up nor will we declare a team winner of the meet. I called the meet at 7 p.m. and we had finished most of the events.”
Just across the parking lot at Jim Bradley Field, the Stags baseball team wasn’t as lucky. The tarps never made it off the field for either Berkeley or visiting Stratford to do anything more than play catch in a soggy outfield.
“We’ll try to figure something out for a make up date,” said Stags coach Shane Todd, “But we both have ball games coming up this week and next.”
Friday’s ball games were a wash across the board with games from Timberland to Goose Creek canceled before the first raindrop was forecast to fall.
“We’ve had way too much rain this week,” said Wolves baseball coach Chris Pond. “The field is in horrible shape.”
Goose Creek’s home baseball game with James Island had been called off before noon.
The forecast for the weekend didn’t invite much promise and Moncks Corner Recreation Department athletic director Ralph Jones remained steadfast in his optimism that something would happen for Opening Day on Saturday morning.
“We will get something in,” Jones said. “We’ve been working on the fields all week and we’ll be out there Saturday morning bright and early to do whatever we can to make these fields playable.”
Opening Day festivities were scheduled all day Saturday including a full slate of games and Mother Nature smiled kindly enough to allow the morning’s activities to proceed despite a quick shower at sunrise.
“This is our twenty-fourth Opening Day,” said Moncks Corner Recreation Department director DeWayne Kitts. “We’ve been able to get something in each time.”
Ball games resumed Monday night with games rescheduled from last week.