Woodlawn Field closing forces club sports to adjust practice routines

Woodlawn Field closed early this year due to lack of rainfall. The field normally closes the week after Thanksgiving break but had to shut its gates on Oct. 25, forcing club and intramural sports teams to relocate their practices.
  
Bloomington experienced dryer than normal conditions in August that carried into September. The abnormally low precipitation caused the field to harden and create poor playing conditions for the sports teams.

President of the Ultimate Frisbee club, Dave Bennett, had to immediately find a new practice field that could accommodate 45 players before their next tournament. 

“Now we practice on the intramural fields on the north side of campus,” Bennett said.

Even though the team has to carpool to the new location, Bennnet said the intramural fields are in better condition than Woodlawn Field. Woodlawn’s turf was just too difficult to practice on, he said.

“It was really dry. It felt like concrete,” Bennett said.

For most other club sports, the season ended right before the field closed. However, the baseball and women’s lacrosse club teams still had to get acclimated with the rough terrain.

“The grass was extremely dry and made it very difficult to field ground balls,” said club baseball President Britt Meyers.

“This year was even tougher than normal as the fall went on since it just kept getting drier and more beat up.”

The women’s lacrosse team also had to adapt to the problematic area.

We had to adjust some of our techniques such as ground ball pick-ups since there was no grass to slow down the ball,” said women’s lacrosse President Claire Lucas.
The field is experiencing a drought, making the ground a big dirt patch.

“The most difficult part to handle was all the dust. We would kick it up when we ran and it would get into our eyes,” Lucas said.

An action IU is considering taking to repair the field is to remove the dead turf and put sod down in its place.

A newly renovated Woodlawn Field is expected to reopen on March 20 of next year.