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New HC turf softball field progressing

T-L Photo/KIM NORTH HARRISON CENTRAL softball coach Darrin Young gives a tour of the Huskies artificial turf surface, which will be ready for play for the 2022 season.

CADIZ — Harrison Central’s softball program will soon have its own Field of Dreams.

Currently under construction just south of the school’s newly christened track facility, the nearly $2.5 million dollar all-turf project is expected to be completed by the end of July.

“The (Harrison Hills) school board came to me about a year ago and said they had a small piece of ground available. They didn’t know whether a softball field would fit in it, but they told me to see if I could make one fit,” Harrison Central head coach Darrin Young said. “I did some research and found a (NCAA) Division II school in Decatur, Ill., — Milliken University — that had a really nice field. We pretty much mirrored our complex after theirs.”

Workman Family Softball Field was created in 2017 in Decatur.

“I printed off drawings, talked to people out there and they sent me some pictures and information,” he continued. “I presented all of the information I received to our school board and administrators. They fell in love with it.

“I really thought it was a pipe dream but they loved it. The layout fit the spot perfectly,” he added. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the kids, not just the ones now but for generations to come.”

Turf fields are becoming the thing of the future, according to Young.

“Edison is going all-turf and there are some other schools thinking about going to it,” Young said. “It will be expensive up front, but there will be no cost to maintain it, mow it, water it, line it, etc. …

“It will be different. We talked about a dirt infield and turf everywhere else, but I think this is the wave of the future. A lot of college and universities are going to this type of field. When I went to the National Softball Coaches Association convention last summer I talked to a lot of college coaches and kind of questioned them about this because I had an idea there might be a possibility of us going to turf. They all told me I was crazy if I didn’t.”

The infield and warning track are a Washington Ball mixture of a reddish color. The outfield has strippings of all different types with an enormous colorful HC located in centerfield.

“That sets off the entire place,” Young noted.

The dimensions are 220-feet down the right and left field lines, with dead center being 235.

Behind home plate will be stadium seating for 225 fans. Behind the the seating area will be a building that will house a home lockerroom, restroom facilities and a concession stand.

“A press box will be located on top of the building with a terrace surrounding it with tables and chairs,” Young added. “The dugouts will be the sunken-in type so that fans can see over top of them.”

He said concrete will be poured behind both dugouts so that fans can walk down the first base line to watch the discus and shot put events during track meets.

“This really unbelievable,” he said while standing near home plate recently. “Every day I come up here it continues to grow. From Day 1 I knew it was going to be a top-notch facility.

“The kids in our school district are blessed to have the facilities that we have … the campus that we have. The softball program tips its hats to the superintendent, all the administrators and the school board.”

When Cadiz, Jewett-Scio and Lakeland high schools consolidated to form Harrison Central High School for the 1999-2000 school year, it also marked the beginning of softball in Harrison County. Neither of the high schools that formed the consolidation had a softball program.

From the inception of the program, the Huskies have always played their home games high above Sally Buffalo Park at the Cravat Coal Cadiz Girls Softball Complex.

“We’re definitely not leaving a crummy place,” Young said of the current Huskies home. “We’ve got a little home there.”

Unfortunately for Young and the 2021 team members, the completion date is after their season is finished.

“We could play on it now but the seating isn’t finished, nor are the dugouts,” Young advised. “We don’t want to take any of the luster away from this place.”

He said there is a possibility of playing an alumni game on the field later in the summer.

The Motz Group, from near Cincinnati, did the turf work. It also did the turf work at Wagner Field several years ago. Hammond Construction of Canton is doing the other work.

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