Mar 6, 2015 4 min read

Unless you are part polar bear, you are probably tired of winter, tired of the cold, tired of the snow.

For most of us, next week, with what is expected to be warmer temperatures, can’t arrive too soon.

Perhaps no group of people has been more frustrated by winter’s grip on the area than the baseball players at Waynesburg University. Old Man Winter has cost the Yellow Jackets the rare opportunity to play in the opening game of a minor-league ballpark that will be host to one of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ affiliates.

Waynesburg was scheduled to play West Virginia on March 17 in the opening game of Monongalia County Ballpark, the 2,500-seat stadium that is being constructed off Interstate 79 in Morgantown, W.Va. The ballpark will be the home of WVU baseball and the West Virginia Black Bears, the Pirates’ new affiliate in the New York-Penn League.

The Mountaineers chose to open the ballpark against Waynesburg because WVU’s first home baseball game in school history was played against the Yellow Jackets. It was a rare opportunity for a Division III school to play a team from a Division I power conference.

That game, however, won’t happen. And blame it on Mother Nature.

WVU’s athletic department announced Thursday that the game against Waynesburg was being canceled because of ballpark construction delays caused by the severe winter. The snow and single-digit temperatures have delayed the installation of the playing surface and seats.

The ballpark’s opening is tentatively rescheduled for April 10, when WVU hosts Butler.

• Washington & Jefferson College’s Ross Memorial Park is one of the best ballparks in Division III, and apparently the NCAA has finally noticed.

W&J announced Friday that Ross Memorial Park has been chosen as the site for the Mideast Regional in this spring’s Division III national tournament.

W&J was selected as one of eight regional hosts. The four-day regional runs May 13-16. The winner advances to the Division III World Series in Appleton, Wis.

“We are very excited to showcase Ross Memorial Park as one of the eight NCAA regional hosts,” said W&J co-interim athletic director Scott McGuinness. “Thanks to the support of our college administration and our dedicated and passionate alumni, Ross Memorial Park is a venue that we are extremely proud of. We are looking to provide teams assigned to the Mideast Regional with a first-class experience.”

W&J has advanced to regional play four times in 12 years under head coach Jeff Mountain.

• The California University women’s basketball team resumes its quest for a PSAC championship this afternoon (3:30 p.m.) when it plays at Bloomsburg in the conference tournament semifinals. Cal (25-4), which is ranked No. 20 in NCAA Division II and fourth in the Atlantic Region, still has a chance to host the first three rounds of the national tournament that begins Friday. To do that, the Vulcans must win the PSAC tournament.

A win over Bloomsburg (25-3), the PSAC’s East Division champion and third-ranked team in the region, would advance Cal to the final, most likely against Indiana (26-2), the No. 2 team in the region. Cal is the only team to beat Indiana, but the Vulcans lost at Bloomsburg back in early January.

The No. 1 team in the region in the last rankings was Livingtone (N.C.), which has won 26 of 28 games but was recently found to have used an ineligible player. The Blue Bears were stripped of 18 wins and lost in the semifinals of their conference tournament.

So with an opportunity to play its way to the top of the regional rankings, all Cal has to do its beat three of the top eight teams in the region in six days. They Vulcans defeated No. 8 Gannon, 66-53, in the quarterfinals Tuesday night.

“That’s life in the PSAC,” Cal coach Jess Strom said.

Sports editor Chris Dugan can be reached at dugan@observer-reporter.com.