Saturday, October 17, 2015

Sentinel: Drainage problems at Magruder athletic field

DERWOOD - For the second sports season in a row, some of Magruder High School’s outdoor sports teams won’t have an open stadium to call their own until at least mid-November.
Consistent drainage problems at Magruder Stadium created inches-thick mud on the playing field during the spring sports season and continued into the summer.
That forced the Montgomery County Public Schools system to spend thousands of dollars to replace the Bermuda grass on the field in Derwood while working out other repair issues.
So while contractors work on replacing the stadium’s drainage system, Magruder’s football and soccer teams will be hosting their home games on the artificial turf at Gaithersburg High School, located about five miles to the west.
It’s a familiar situation for Gaithersburg just a few years after construction projects at the school forced its sports teams to play home games at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville.
The same thing also happened not too long ago to Paint Branch High School.
Meanwhile this season, Magruder isn’t alone in playing its home games away: Montgomery Blair High School is serving as Wheaton High School’s temporary home too for its stadium sports.
Magruder Stadium, which seats up to 4,000 people, is slated to reopen Nov. 15.
Originally, Magruder officials targeted Sept. 30 as a potential opening day but construction delays pushed the projected opening date back by one and a half months.
“And when we saw it in the summer, it wasn't progressing as fast as we hoped,” said Magruder athletic director Karl Heimbach, later adding, “You have to work with what you have. There [are] a lot of players involved in doing a big project like this and all the pieces have to come together to get it completed.”
Construction work included laying new Bermuda grass, redoing the field’s irrigation system, reattaching the irrigation system to the other fields tied into it and replacing both the draining system and the track around the football field...

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