Wayne State College is preparing to host its first ever home softball games inside of the newly built dome. The games will be played on Feb. 7-8 and will feature Nebraska based colleges.
WSC Director of Athletics Mike Powicki said that one of the main ideas for the dome was for indoor games to be hosted.
“Really, it’s been our plan all along to use the dome for softball games,” Powicki said. “Whether it’s non-conference or potentially when we do hit inclement weather during our conference season, we can move games inside.”
WSC is not the first team in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference to have a building that allows for indoor softball to be played.
“Theres a couple other schools that have air supported structures or domes like us, that we have been able to play in before,” Powicki said. “We never thought it was going to be an issue of scheduling games or just getting interest because we had been through it before.”
Wildcat softball Head Coach Christy Warnock said that she is very excited to have the opportunity to host these indoor games with her team.
“Anytime that we get to stay here and have a home game is an advantage for us,” Warnock said. “So, it was an opportunity for us to not have to travel early and for other schools to be able to come in and get guaranteed games early in the season.”
Even with the ability to play softball early in the year, there are a few changes that need to be implemented and a lot of work that must go into the dome in order for the game to even be cleared by the NSIC.
“It took a lot of work, because we do have a unique setup in ours,” Powicki said. “Some of the other facilities that we have played in have turf across the entire facility, while we have a track. So that certainly compresses down our useable turf space.”
With the indoor track around the outside of the dome, it cuts down the amount of space available for a field. This causes a change to be made in the field configuration.
“Your typical softball field is 210 to 220 feet all the way around, which we can easily get in right field and center field,” Powicki said. “But once we come up on the track, we kind of have to flatten out and we are about 190 feet in left field.”
Of course, this was a concern for NSIC officials. Luckily for WSC, they could make a change in order for the field to be cleared for play.
“One of the caveats basically was that you can have a short porch so long as you have a higher fence,” Powicki said. “So, we ordered ten-foot fencing for all the areas where we were short, and then we dropped down to a six-foot fence for the rest of the field.”
This process took many schematic drawings and thousands of pictures that had to be sent in to the NSIC in order for it to be approved for use. This extra step is tacked on to a rule that was already implemented for the dome.
“The conference had to come up with specific dome rules for roof balls,” Warnock said. “If the ball hits the dome in fair territory and it’s caught, it’s an out. If it hits the dome in fair territory and then drops to the turf, it’s a foul ball. So, it’s a little bit of an odd thing to get used to.”
Coach Warnock said that her team is able to work on this very often because they use the dome all of the time for practices.
As for the set-up of the field, it is not as difficult as it might seem.
“It doesn’t take super long if you get a whole team on it,” Powicki said. “You can get that thing set up in half an hour. They’re pretty lightweight, and pretty durable pieces.”
The quick set-up time allows for the field to be configured in a pinch. This will be of big use for the team, especially if bad weather strikes in the future.
“It’s awesome and it’s super great for planning purposes too because we always have that secondary option,” Warnock said. “Trying to be a weather man, looking at four different apps and there all saying different things. You never know what’s going to happen until the day of. So, the fact that we can plan on using the facility we have outside and then if we wake up to a snowstorm, it only takes us about an hour to get everything set up in the dome and then we can play in there.”
Not only will the dome field be used for WSC’s softball season, but the college has other plans laid out as well.
“Our whole idea with buying the fencing was yes, primary use is to build a softball field or a youth baseball field, because we are going to do camps and clinics too,” Powicki said. “But the other idea is to have that to utilize for other events.”
The fencing being used for the softball field was also used during the WSC indoor track meet, in order to set up the team camp sites in the middle of the field.
Along with youth camps and clinics, WSC has already hosted games inside of the dome this year.
“Actually last weekend we had two junior colleges that rented the space to get a game in,” Powicki said. “We have already done some youth club softball team games in there which is basically the same field set up.”
As for the actual games this weekend, Coach Warnock said her team has been itching to get back on the field together.
“I mean it’s the beginning of our season, so there’s enough excitement around that already,” Warnock said. “And then being able to start the season at home, which we’ve never been able to do, is its own exciting thing.”
The Wildcats will play Chadron State and the University of Kearney on both Saturday and Sunday.
With the teams all being Nebraska Division II colleges, Coach Warnock said the weekend is almost a “best of division two in Nebraska”. She said that there are a lot of expectations for her group this year, and she is excited to see them grow.
“We’ve been training for a long time now to have the opportunity to finally get out and play and compete in front of family and friends,” Warnock said. “We’re ready to rock and roll and I don’t think the seventh can get here fast enough.”
