GILROY
– The
”
unfit
”
soccer field at Gavilan College may be fixed in as soon as 10
days.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – The “unfit” soccer field at Gavilan College may be fixed in as soon as 10 days.
The City of Gilroy has contracted an outside landscaping company to repair the field, which was declared unfit for competitive play by Gavilan Athletic Director Ron Hannon before the start of the women’s soccer season Aug. 15.
“They believe within 10 days, two weeks tops, we should be back on the field,” Hannon said.
Using an outside landscaper means the field, ravaged by gophers, can be repaired in one fell swoop. The city, which is responsible for maintaining the field and adjacent softball fields under a joint-use agreement with Gavilan, has said the extermination and repairs are too large a project for its maintenance staff alone to handle.
“The problem got to a point where we could not provide the type of intercollegiate field Gavilan wanted,” said Carla Ruigh, operation services manager for the city. “We needed to contract with an outside firm that has the ability to use different kinds of chemicals.”
The city has already started to do a similar gopher abatement program at Christmas Hill Park and on the ranch site, Ruigh said.
The city will pay the landscaper $5,500 to exterminate the gophers tunneling through the fields, fill in those tunnels and make the surface of the field level to prevent injury to players. Some areas of grass may have to be re-seeded, but that will be determined once the gophers and tunnels are taken care of, Hannon said.
“We’re going to see if we can get the turf to come back naturally,” he said.
Keeping the gophers at bay will be a long-term project, Hannon said. The landscaper will exterminate the gophers infesting the field, but abatement will be needed to keep new rodents from coming in.
“Well after the soccer and softball seasons are over, there’s still going to be attention needed on fixing the gophers,” Hannon said.
The field has deteriorated over the past year as numerous gophers moved into the area. Construction around Gavilan College pushed the gophers toward the field and the city maintenance staff was unable to keep up. The field became unsafe for players, and Hannon said he could not in good faith allow players from Gavilan or other community colleges to risk serious injury.
It remains unclear whether the city will boost its maintenance to meet what the college says are the minimum standards for community college-level competition. The city uses and maintains the fields for recreational use, while Hannon and head soccer coach Marty Behler have pushed to better field maintenance. For example, in community college competition, grass must be trimmed shorter than for recreational use.
The city has said that Gavilan staff will be responsible for maintenance that goes above and beyond the city’s standards.
Hannon said Gavilan and city officials will sort out the maintenance agreement once the field is back in shape and the players can train properly once again.
“The initial phase of this is, let’s tackle the problem we’ve got in front of us, because that’s the immediate concern,” Hannon said. “We’re working on it. … Our main concern is to get our players back on the field.”
Without a safe home field, the Lady Rams were forced to play more games than usual at their opponents’ schools.
Now, the team has found a temporary home in Morgan Hill, Hannon said. Until the Gavilan field is ready, the City of Morgan Hill has offered a field in its soccer complex for the team’s six remaining home games.
“It was very nice for the city of Morgan Hill to step forward and offer their facilities and their services,” Hannon said.
The soccer team will still struggle to make do with the facilities it has for daily practices. It has been practicing in an area of the Gavilan soccer and softball fields that is a quarter of the regulation 110 yards by 70 yards, Hannon said.
“They’re not practicing on a full-sized field,” Hannon said. “It’s not optimal, it’s not what we’d like it to be.”
