SHREVEPORT – Spring rains seemed to make their appearances on game days for large parts of this baseball season, particularly affecting the NAIA Baseball Regional held at Pilot Field in mid-May.
Delays were the norm as rainfall throughout this past Regional and pushed games later as field crews and facility services worked tirelessly to prepare the field for play.
Thanks to a new outfield project, fewer delays can be expected as water will drain more effectively.
LSUS installed a new grass outfield with a one-foot graded slope from the infield turf to the warning track that’s designed to carry water to the existing campus drainage system.
“It’s something that’s been in the works for the past couple of years, and it’s something we badly needed,” said LSUS baseball coach Brad Neffendorf. “We used to have places like a major drop off on the back side of the infield turf where water would pool, but this regrade corrects problems like that and will help the entire outfield drain better.
“There were spots so low that sometimes the water had no place to go, and the high spots were dry.”
LSUS athletics director Lucas Morgan considered not hosting a baseball regional this year because of the outfield’s state, taking a pounding from a wetter than average spring.
But that won’t be an issue once the Bermuda grass on the new sod installed this past week settle and connect.
“This is a much-improved surface for our student-athletes to play on, and we won’t have many of the delays and postponements we’ve had in the past couple years,” Morgan said. “We’re going to continue to be a baseball regional site with a top-five baseball program, and we needed our facility to reflect that status.”
Neffendorf added that rain falling the night before or the morning of a game should be much less likely to impact an evening game because of the improved drainage.
“It will be less work for us and our crews,” Neffendorf said. “It’ll make hosting events like NAIA Regionals much easier.”
The project, funded by LSUS Athletics dollars, costs $350,000.
The infield turf already has a one-foot grade that carries water past home plate and out of the park.
It won’t be “perfect” like the Pilots’ 59-0 record this past season, but it’s a project that will have a lasting effect for Pilot Field.
The turf infield, the new clubhouse and home dugout, new chairback seating and new lights are the latest in a series of improvements since 2020 that’s made LSUS’s home field one of the best in the NAIA.
Neffendorf has a grand vision of what Pilot Field could be in the near future.
“It’ll take some fundraising, but we’d love to add more seating and upgrade our indoor practice space among other improvements,” Neffendorf said.
With the facility improvements, LSUS put itself back in contention to host the Red River Athletics Conference baseball tournament, which is currently played in Sterlington.
Morgan said LSUS has always enjoyed its active baseball alumni, but he said winning the program’s first World Series and engineering college baseball’s first-ever perfect season has re-energized the base and opening doors in the community.
“Our alumni are re-engaged, and we have other community members who are paying attention to our program that present fundraising opportunities for us,” Morgan said. “The next big baseball project for us would be more stadium seating and new bleachers in a more enclosed arrangement.
“Our athletics fundraising has always been about improving our facilities and our scholarships, and a season like this can definitely make a big difference.”
