Mother Nature threw a wicked curveball
It finally hit Jeremy York that this wasn’t a normal week.
For Memorial’s baseball coach, the moment came near the end of his team’s Game 2 victory over Katy Taylor. The game was long, plagued by sloppy play and multiple pitching changes.
But it was more than that. “I look down at my watch, and I’m like, ‘It is 4 a.m. Are you kidding me?’ ” said York, whose Mustangs swept Katy Taylor in a second-round playoff series in which both games were pushed back and moved because of the inclement weather that pounded Texas last week.
Mother Nature didn’t win, but she sure dictated the pace throughout.
The UIL state tennis tournament, originally scheduled for May 12-13, suffered a 12-hour delay on the first day. That pushed matches for all six classifications well past midnight, with some players coming off the courts in College Station before another storm came through at 4 a.m. The tournament was pushed to a third day, nearby indoor courts were rented, and singles finals participants were left to do their own scheduling.
Dozens of baseball and softball playoff games were rescheduled. The TAPPS state tournament moved from Waco to the Houston area.
Midnight competition
The UIL state track and field meet in Austin had a weather delay Friday morning. A rolling schedule made up for the missed time in the running events, but one pole vault competition was pushed back. Other field events went on, but some high jumpers struggled with their footing.
“You would just get mad when it rained, but after some point you just realize you can’t control Mother Nature,” UIL athletic director Mark Cousins said Saturday — a welcomed, sunny Saturday — at the state track meet. “When it’s nice, it’s really good … but it’s gotten to the point, especially if you’ve done it a little bit longer, that you understand that some things are just going to happen.
“Weather is going to be an issue, especially in the spring in Texas.”
Houston averages almost 50 inches or rain annually, according to data collected by the National Weather Service Forecast Office. Going into May, 2015’s total was roughly 16 inches.
Last week, the area saw plenty.
Tennis in College Station went from an 8 a.m. start to hours of trying to dry the courts and waiting. Matches didn’t start until 8 p.m. and went through the night as officials got as many in as they could. Texas A&M graduation was over the weekend, so hotel space was limited.
“It was frustrating for us,” said Dulles assistant tennis coach Kayla Munson, who watched freshman Marlee Zein finish second in Class 6A girls singles. “Just a lot of sitting around and waiting really, but couldn’t do anything about it.”
Said Cousins: “It’s not a great situation for anybody to be playing that late into the night, but again, it’s not the first time, unfortunately, we’ve had to do stuff like that. We’ve had state track meets run until 1 or 2 a.m. before. I know in baseball, we’ve thrown the first pitch at 11:59 p.m. or midnight before.
“We don’t like to do those things, but sometimes Mother Nature throws you a curveball.”
Weather is unavoidable, especially during spring, when most sports are outdoors.
In the fall, football teams flock to the state’s three domed stadiums, grouping doubleheaders and tripleheaders together over a weekend. The indoor element is a UIL requirement in hosting its 12 football championship games.
That’s not possible with other sports whose facilities don’t allow for such clustering. Bryan’s indoor tennis facility has three courts. And of course, there aren’t indoor golf courses, track facilities or softball stadiums.
“We would love that. If they put a dome over (Myers Track and Soccer Stadium in Austin), it would be awesome,” Cousins said, adding the UIL never has had specific talks with Minute Maid Park, which has a retractable roof, about hosting state baseball. “But if there are facilities such as that that are interested in talking to us about hosting our events, we’re more than happy to listen, because we wanted to get those matches played with as little loss of school time and little loss of expense.
“Anything we can do to make those things go off as scheduled, we’re more than willing to listen.”
Turf battles
Baseball and softball teams rushed to fields with artificial turf. Stadiums at Sweeny (63 miles from Houston) and Mumford (119) quickly filled, as did Baseball USA, Premier Baseball in Tomball and the Scrap Yards in Oak Ridge.
That also meant teams waiting their turn in line.
Memorial and Katy Taylor went nine innings in their opener, finishing last Thursday around 10:30 p.m. Friday storms left coaches scrambling again. Sweeny was available but not until 10:30 p.m., and a delay pushed the start to after midnight.
York called Baseball USA and secured a spot after Cy-Fair-Westside, which went 10 innings. Memorial and Katy Taylor finally started around 12:45 a.m.
“It was crazy to say the least,” York said. “Hindsight being 20-20 and seeing what the weather did Saturday, we wouldn’t have played Friday night, and I will never agree to play after midnight again ever. You want to get the games in, and that was kind of our thought process because we didn’t know what the weather was going to do.
“Everybody was drained and exhausted, so I just told (the players), ‘Hey, let’s go home and get some rest.’ ”