Cowgirls New Playing Surface Almost Completed
STILLWATER – Oklahoma State is preparing to head down to College Station, Texas for two games with Texas Southern sandwiched around a game with Tennessee State before playing host Texas A&M twice, once on Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. and then again on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. Head coach Kenny Gajewski was looking forward on the chilly Tuesday afternoon to practicing for the first time this season fully at Cowgirls Stadium, but a little more work held that up.
The field is close as they were still working on the fence behind home plate, but the new outfield and foul territory turf, part of Astroturf’s diamond series is complete including an OSU brand logo in centerfield and the new outfield fence and hitter’s background is ready as well.
The cutting edge turf in the outfield combines with a custom rebuilt hard (cement hard) dirt infield. The new turf is 15 degrees cooler than the conventional turf often used for athletic surfaces and it has been built to neuter the bounce so that the ball bounces more like normal grass. The filler material in the turf is not a rubber composition but instead it feels more like a soft seed material.
“We won’t have anymore rainouts. We’ll be able to practice everyday on our field,” Gajewski said with a smile. “The fence won’t fall over and we won’t have wall pads that fall off our fence when we are playing the number one team in the country and we’re beating them. You know wall pads are falling off and we’re having to stop a game. That’s all stuff that was crazy.
“The fence is going to look awesome,” he continued. “The field is going to be turf and we’ll have a hard dirt infield, so there will be a learning curve. It’ll give our grounds crew, which is the best in the country a chance to take care of a field that they know is built right.”
The Cowgirls will go to College Station for the games beginning on Friday down in the rankings. After beating No. 16 Michigan and No. 23 Northwestern last weekend but losing to No. 22 LSU, South Florida, and No. 5 Washington the Cowgirls have dropped to No. 11 in the USA Today and NFCA poll and to No. 12 in the ESPN and USA Softball poll.
None of the teams in the Reveille Classic at Texas A&M including the Aggies are ranked in the polls.
In one other note, the Cowgirls Kelly Maxwell was named the Big 12 Pitcher of the Week for her standout performance in the win over No. 16 Michigan. Maxwell carried a perfect game into the seventh inning, but lost it on a bloop single down the left field line that shortstop Kiley Naomi nearly came up with on a diving attempt. In that game Maxwell struck out 10 Wolverine hitters. She maintained a 1.17 ERA, kept opposing batters to a .190 average, and racked up 20 strikeouts in 12.0 innings of work over five games on the weekend.