Thanks to Scotts, Major League Baseball and the Seattle Mariners, North Snohomish Little League was able to upgrade one of its fields.
NSLL had a field redone thanks to the Scotts Field Refurbishment Program, a partnership between Scotts and MLB designed to give back to communities and encourage participation in baseball.
“We’re extremely grateful to Scotts, Major League Baseball and the Mariners for doing this for our field,” NSLL president Tyler Cruze said. “It’s a great opportunity, and the exposure for what’s a pretty small Little League is amazing.”
NSLL is one of six leagues to receive assistance through the program this year. Leagues near the Los Angeles Dodgers and Texas Rangers had fields refurbished earlier this year. Leagues near the Oakland Athletics and Miami Marlins are set to have fields refurbished later in the year. One other league is still to be determined.
“We worked with the Mariners to find a field that needed refurbishment and would also get a lot of use,” Scotts brand director Matt Taylor said about how NSLL was selected. “North Snohomish Little League has 500 boys and girls ages 4-16 who participate in their programs, so we knew it would get use.”
The field NSLL had reworked is one that was originally designed for 90-foot bases. NSLL doesn’t currently have any teams that play on 90-foot bases, and it’s intermediate (70-foot) field was in an isolated part of the 10-field complex that had drainage issues. Therefore, the 90-foot field was reconfigured so that it could accommodate both 70- and 90-foot bases. A new grass infield was installed, the batter’s boxes were rebuilt, and the mound was set up to adjust based on the length of the bases being used. The work took about a week.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held May 1.
“This field is in the middle of the complex, so it brings the intermediate team back to the middle of the complex,” Cruze said. “Hopefully that allows our younger kids to see the older kids and want to follow suit, and therefore strengthen our older programs.”
Albrecht ties for 17th
Ashley Albrecht of Everett’s Leading Edge Gymnastics Academy tied for 17th in the all-around at the 2017 Women’s Junior Olympic National Championships on Sunday in Indianapolis. Competing in the Senior F Division, Albrecht scored a 37.700 to place in the top third of the 57 competitors. Her best individual event was the vault, where she tied for 17th with a score of 9.625.
Halladay breaks four-minute mark
Seattle Pacific University’s Ben Halladay, a graduate of Kamiak High School, broke the vaunted four-minute barrier in the 1,500 meters Saturday at the Ken Shannon Invitational in Seattle. Halladay, a junior, finished in a time of 3 minutes, 59.12 seconds. He placed sixth in his heat and 17th overall.
Cheerleaders headed to national event
Two teams from Arlington’s Sonic Elite All Stars cheerleading facility were chosen for the The D2 Summit, a national competition held next weekend in Orlando, Florida. Sonic Elite’s teams that were selected to compete were the Senior Level 2 Large and Golden Goddesses Junior 3 Small teams. The D2 Summit is exclusively for gyms with 125 athletes or fewer.
If you have an idea for a community sports story, e-mail Nick Patterson at npatterson@heraldnet.com.
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