Sports

NECC Snow Plans For Spring Season

and  

With the spring sports season ready to get underway within the next two weeks, NECC is trying to find a way to cope with all the snow that still blankets all the playing fields. While the baseball team has their yearly trip to Florida for the start of their season, they will still return to a snow-covered diamond. The softball and track team face the same dilemma.

Athletic Director Sue MacAvoy has been looking for places to play in the meantime.
“We’ve been talking to some places around here with turf fields, like Haverhill Stadium,” she said. “Baseball and softball have been practicing there a bit, with track running around the perimeter.”

But Haverhill Stadium has one of the very few turf fields in the area, making it hard to find time to get out there.

“Every school around wants to practice and play out there,” MacAvoy said. “It’s just hard to find times that work for everybody.”

MacAvoy estimates that the fields on the Haverhill campus won’t be ready until at least mid-April, especially with the snowfall this past weekend. In the meantime, the Knights’ baseball team has one game scheduled at Haverhill Stadium, against Bunker Hill Community College on Saturday, March 28.

The weather has certainly played a part in the limited numbers for the track program so far, making it hard to new head coach Beau Couture to get a feel for his team.

The softball team has been throwing the ball around in the gym on campus for the most part. They’ve been practicing since about January, and have been outside at Haverhill Stadium four times. The girls are just itching to get out on the field, and they’ve ramped up their practices to five days a week. The Knights are scheduled to begin their season on Saturday, March 28 against NHTI. The game is scheduled to be played on the Haverhill campus, but there is a possibility that it will be moved to NHTI’s home field in Concord.

This will be the first season that softball will be a full varsity sport at NECC.

So while the snow plows try to move some of the snow off the track to help get the weight off it, MacAvoy will continue to look for ways to get her teams out onto the field for the spring sports season.