This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

Plum Girls Softball Field Plans in Home Run Stage

Plum's girl's softball team may have a new field on the high school campus as soon as next fall as district officials have voted to move ahead with the project.

Plum Borough School District hopes to hit a homerun with plans for a new girls’ softball field at the senior high school.

It won’t cost as much as a previously proposed field, but it will be just what—and just where—players, coaches and families want it to be.

That’s what Tom McGough, Plum Borough School District Athletic committee chair said about the district’s plan. The proposed project would add a girls’ softball field right next to the boys’ baseball field.

Find out what's happening in Plum-Oakmontwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The field could be ready as soon as next school year.

“The parents, the players, the coaches, they really have been waiting a long time for this,” he said.

Find out what's happening in Plum-Oakmontwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The school board voted at Tuesday night’s council meeting in favor of accepting bids for work on the proposed field.

Members also voted to use funds totaling about $196,000 to do the job. The funds will come from what remains in the 2001-02 general obligation fund, officials said.

McGough said that the entire project will cost about $196,000 or less.

Previously, a girls’ softball and practice soccer field had been proposed for the new Pivik Elementary site at an estimated cost of $1.2 million. McGough said that proposed field wasn’t what the girls’ softball players wanted because of the location.

“It seemed like a high cost for something they didn’t really need or want,” he said.

A new field on the high school campus would not only increase accessibility to girls’ softball games for players, fellow students and their family and friends, he said, but it would also increase a sense of equality between the boys’ baseball team and girls’ softball team.

“(With) the baseball field and the softball field, our goal is that they be identical,” McGough said. “We can have equality and parity between the boys’ field and the girls’ field.”

The move would allow for the softball games to be announced from a crow’s nest above the fields, just as boys’ baseball and football games are broadcasted. That’s another change that would increase equality between the boys’ and girls’ teams, he said.

McGough and his wife, Luci, already announce for the football and baseball games. They have volunteered to announce softball games as well.

The school district will now be taking bids for work such as excavation, a back stop and similar items, he said.

 The school board will likely have bids ready for voting as early as the next voting meeting in May, McGough said.

However, the district most likely won't need to hire out all of the work.

McGough said there are plans to re-use whatever the district can from the field at the current Pivik Elementary  site where the girls played from 2002 until recently, when construction at the site displaced them to Plum Borough Athletic Association Fields number seven and eight.

The district may be able to reuse posts, fencing and backstops, he said.

McGough said the district will also be able to save on costs by tapping into the sprinkler system of the boys’ field for the sod field planned for the girls’.

Laying down sod will allow for the field to be available as soon as possible, he said. Other options, like grass seed, would require at least two years to grow before games could be played on it.

“I’d like to believe if we can do our work here, then they can have fall ball on that field,” he said.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?