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Snow much for home field advantage

By Ed Horan

On April 21, 2011

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As a spring sport, men's lacrosse was scheduled for four home games. Baseball was scheduled for eleven games on Skip Pound field, including a double header versus Norwich and a four game series to round out the season with Castleton. Softball was scheduled for eight games. Finally, men's tennis is supposed to have five matches at Dudley Bell Court.

To date, seven of eleven home games have been changed to out-of-area games or postponed for the baseball team. Softball was only able to play two home games in this 2011 season. Tennis had two matches cancelled. Unfortunately for the lacrosse players, they will not have a single home game in their 2011 campaign. All teams have these games changed due to poor field conditions. In fact, the lacrosse team has yet to even see the field for a practice.

Understandably, this is the Northeast Kingdom and weather is naturally cold and the snow can be obnoxious. Scheduling for athletic teams' home games usually comes later in the spring after the fields have thawed. Even though home games usually happen in April and May, games still have been moved and fields are not ready to be played on.

Not every athlete is upset about the delay or movement of home games. Men's tennis' Michael Howard thinks this isn't even that bad.

"Well although it's still cold out, it's nice to hit indoors without any wind that affects the play, but I enjoy it more because as a team we're able to bond on the road which makes our doubles game that much better," he said.

Not everyone is so happy. Senior captain of the home-game-less men's lacrosse team Chris Mansour said, "I really don't know who makes the schedule or how they do it but something needs to change".

Mansour went on to say if he thinks there should be more home games for them next year because of the lack of games in Lyndon this year.

"Absolutely, and more efforts should be made to clear the field, the field was snow blown four days before our game," said Mansour.

Does this mean more home games for postponed or moved games will still be scheduled for this season or added to next year? The NCAA Division III manual and handbook says nothing about a mandatory amount of home field games for any team sports. We have yet to see what will come of all these cancellations of home games.

Certainly, a majority of students would like to see the Hornets of Lyndon take on the likes of Castleton and Johnson State at home, as shown by the outpouring of support for our Soccer team in the playoffs. Only time and a new academic year will tell if our teams will be compensated for the lack of home games or if it will just be the same as this snowy year.