Despite mild days scattered here and there, by and large the Oberlin weather gods have not smiled upon spring athletics so far this March.
Both the men’s lacrosse match at Marietta College Tuesday and the men’s baseball doubleheader at Earlham College last Saturday were postponed due to inclement conditions.
“Earlham still had an inch of snow on the ground last weekend,” head baseball coach Eric Lahetta said.
Both games have been rescheduled, lacrosse for April 7 and baseball tentatively for early May, “depending on how games play out over the course of the season,” according to Lahetta.
This weekend’s home baseball games against Bluffton College and Thiel College have also been postponed due to poor field conditions.
Head lacrosse coach Rob Oldham took a resigned stance regarding the postponements.
“It is always a possibility that the weather will cancel a game regardless of the month,” he said. “Summer lightning, winter snow, tornadoes, national tragedies — all are responsible for causing changes in the schedule. We just adapt.”
Lahetta has reconciled himself to the nature of an Ohio winter as well.
“We generally understand that the games in early March are 50-50 whether we play them or not,” he said. “And we generally have spaces in our schedule to make up the games postponed because of the weather. It’s all a part of coaching baseball in the northern part of the country.”
That said, this winter has proved more trying than most.
“I have never endured a winter like this,” Lahetta said. “It has been a real inconvenience.
It really puts us behind the other teams in the conference because our spring break is by far the latest of any other school in the NCAC. Many of the other schools have played ten to 12 games by the time we return from spring break.”
Several other conference schools travel south during their spring breaks in early March, returning to the Midwest when the weather has become slightly more balmy, thus yielding more net time for practices and competition outdoors.
The lacrosse team was able to venture outside for 45-minute training sessions that Oldham said were “not really practices” last Thursday and Friday.
The baseball team, however, has remained trapped indoors, though according to Lahetta they are crossing their fingers for a possible outdoor sojourn this afternoon.
“Practicing inside for six consecutive weeks can be tough on the psyche,” he said, “so the guys are looking forward to getting outside this weekend.”
“Practicing indoors is toughest on the outfielders because there is no substitute for fly balls,” he added.
Fortunately, some relief lies ahead for the baseball squad. They will travel down to Fort Myers, Fla., for the Gene Cusic Classic during spring break, to face several teams from around the nation, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The lacrosse team’s next scheduled game is March 18 at Kenyon.