Will Martens
Staff Writer
Mira Costa was always proud of its green and gold but due to the recent drought crisis in California, many sports, especially baseball and softball, have been or will be affected, leaving them with no green.
Depending on grass type, month, and hourly sprinkler output, the current time limit of weekly sprinkler usage could vary from 9 to 143 minutes on the Southern California coast. Costa’s athletic fields may continue to worsen as the drought threatens their quality.
“We do have a lot of problems with the grass getting torn up over the course of the year,” varsity baseball player said.
At Costa, the baseball and softball fields require the outfields to be watered in order to maintain their green state. In addition to these large areas, there are other areas on campus that may need to be watered, such as the sports practice field and other sports-related grass areas.
“As a softball player and outfielder, it would directly affect me because the lack of irrigation would cause the field to dry out and the grass to die,” freshman Serena Poniciano said. “If this were to happen, it would make it harder to read balls on the ground and make it more difficult to dive for a ball.”
The football field has been made of artificial turf since the upgrade in 2007. Although, the field cost the school $1.03 million to install, the decision has proven wise because of the dry circumstances in which California stands.
“Having a turf field doesn’t require water and its consistently good quality that we can play on,” freshman football player Miles Choromanski said. “If we didn’t have turf then the grass would slowly die and be full of dirt. It would also be hard to run on.”
In 2010, the Mira Costa baseball program replaced their infield grass with synthetic turf.
“We originally installed the turf six years ago because of maintenance problems with grass infields,” baseball coach Cassidy Olson said. “We also knew that in California droughts are common and it would be great not to ever have to deal with water on the infield.”
Because of the drought, Costa is looking towards switching all their athletic fields to turf.
“A turf field would save maintenance, time, water, money, man power, and other valuable resources,” sophomore softball player Erica Noll said.
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