As rain comes, YAIAA teams use extra day to prep
Local baseball fans who were amped up to see a full slate of York-Adams action in the District 3 tournament on Monday were forced to wait an extra day.
A wave of storms brought heavy rain and hail to the area on Monday afternoon, forcing six YAIAA teams to push their district playoff games back to Tuesday.
Monday's postseason games between Eastern York/Greencastle-Antrim, Northeastern/Hamburg, West York/Palmyra, Delone Catholic/Biglerville and Cedar Cliff/Dallastown were all moved to Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.
Dallastown and Cedar Cliff were already on the field going through warmups when they were told their game would be postponed.
"The clouds and storm came up and dumped rain for about 20 to 25 minutes," Dallastown head coach Greg Kinneman said. "With all the rain we had over the weekend, we had the field ready for today but we knew it wouldn't be able to hold much more water if it rained more."
The Wildcats didn't let the day go to waste. They got some light work in once the sun came back out.
"The field was too wet, but when the sun came out we got some throwing in and some swings in the outfield," Kinneman said. "There's disappointment because obviously the kids want to play, especially in big games. But we were ready today and they'll be re-focused and ready tomorrow."
Similar to Dallastown's strategy, Delone Catholic used the extra day to get some more practice time in before tomorrow's matchup with Biglerville, who the Squires split two games with during the regular season.
"An extra day doesn't really help much, we just got an extra batting practice session in before the rains came," Delone head coach Doug Arnold said. "We haven't played for a week-and-a-half so if we aren't prepared now then we never will be."
Northeastern players had spent the afternoon raking the field and getting it ready for postseason action, then the rain and hail came, senior pitcher Kody Reeser said.
"We saw the coaches huddling up and then our athletic director got on the phone so we all knew that was bad news," Reeser said. "The worst part was we got out of school early to rake the field. We worked our tails off getting that field ready and then hail and rain came."
Reeser, a Towson University commit, is expected to pitch Tuesday when the No. 3 Bobcats take on Hamburg. An extra day won't hurt or help his preparation on the mound, he said, but could add to the anticipation.
"Preferably I would like everything to be right on point with my routine and schedule but I don't think an extra day will help or hurt anything in my opinion," Reeser said. "I believe this will add to the anticipation of such a big game. I know our team will use this extra day to add to the excitement around the school and community to feed off and carry it over to the next day."