Union Catholic Baseball Team Christens New Field

Union Catholic High's baseball program will take a step back to the past on Saturday afternoon.

The Vikings will open their new turf facility Saturday at 1 p.m. for the team's game against Mendham. To help celebrate, Al Ashmont, who led the Vikings to a state championship in 1984 as the team's ace, will throw out the first pitch to his high school catcher, Sean Carter.

The funds for the project were raised entirely by alumni.

"It's been phenomenal," said head coach Jim Reagan Jr., the Union Catholic coach
and its vice principal. "The feedback from the alumni has been fantastic. The enthusiasm has been phenomenal. Everybody wants to play on it. We'll probably get an alumni game on it too."

Reagan said that the Vikings have had six scrimmages and one regular season game.

"We've basically scrimmaged on the field since the first day," he said. "It's
really a dream come true."

Union Catholic christened its new field Thursday with a 10-0 win over Roselle. The game was scheduled to be played at Roselle, but the Rams field was not playable.

"It was great; it was a game we wouldn't have made up, and we got it in," said Reagan. "They had a half-day of school and it worked out great."

The softball team played after the baseball team and beat Roselle.

Both dugouts have been completed and the benches within the dugouts were completed Thursday. The plan is to install bullpens for both teams, a full batting cage and rubber on the track in August. Full bleachers and a scoreboard are also part of the plan.

"It's going to blow your mind away when you come here," Reagan said.

The girls lacrosse team and the coed track team will also use the field. The first full fall season on the turf for the boys and girls soccer teams will be in 2010. The teams did get a few games last fall.

"We used to have a track, a cinder track that used to go through the middle of the infield, during the early 1990's they took the track out from within the infield," Reagan said. "It was practice only. Now we have it where it's not the right shape, but it's the right distance. They can practice there, but probably won't have meets there because of the shape of the property."