After standards are raised, OSU will feature night games

By Brooks Hatch
Corvallis Gazette-Times

Oregon State soccer coaches Dana Taylor and Steve Fennah can’t guarantee winning records this fall, but one things for sure:

It should be an illuminating season for the men’s and women’s programs, thanks to the installation of lights at Lorenz Field.

The men will play five regular-season night games, the women four. Both team’s pre-season exhibitions will also be under the lights, starting with the men’s 8 p.m. friendly with Simon Fraser on Aug. 15.

“It’s going to be a huge plus, in a number of areas,” Fennah said. “Certainly it will make it much more attractive for people to watch us play,” especially on weekday games.

“A Friday game at 7 or 7:30 is more convenient for people after they come home from work than a 3 o’clock game,” the customary starting time in late October or early November.

Taylor was equally enthusiastic.

“It will take us to the next level as far as recruiting, and put us on a level playing field with the rest of the Pac-10. Cal is the only other team without lights, and they’re in the process of getting them as we speak.”

Construction started in mid-May but was put on hold during the NCAA softball Corvallis Regional and Super Regional.

“We had some permit issues we needed to work through,” said John Cheney, OSU’s assistant athletic director for facilities and operation. “We got that resolved. The lights should be up and ready to go within two weeks.”

Fennah said adding lights should also create more of a “big-time” ambiance, and will be popular with his players.

“The atmosphere for night games is special,” he said. “Our players played a lot of night games in high school and in club, and it’s something they enjoy very much and are looking forward to.”

Added Taylor: “It makes for a much more festive atmosphere, a better environment. And lights give you more flexibility in being able to host big-time games,” such as second- or third-round NCAA contests.

OSU athletic director Bob De Carolis estimated the cost at between $150,000 and $200,000, to be funded through private donations and revenue from the various clinics staged by each program.

Musco Lighting of Iowa, the company that installed the new lights at Reser Stadium, Goss Stadium and the Truax Indoor center, is the general contractor. Four 80-foot towers will provide television quality lighting for potential broadcasts, Cheney said.

“The lights will be focused to the field, so there will be no light bleed” into Western Boulevard and the neighborhood, Cheney said.

The area transformer was also upgraded so it can handle a proposed lighting system for the adjacent OSU Softball Complex.

Lorenz Field could receive a dramatic facelift for the 2007 season. Some of Reser Stadium’s aluminum end zone bleachers may be relocated there after they’re removed for the Raising Reser II project, which is expected to begin this December.

“That’s a possibility, but we’re still working through that,” De Carolis said. “We have to determine what it would cost to disassemble and reassemble them, as opposed to doing something else. We haven’t gotten an answer on that yet.”

Lorenz Field’s wooden grandstand and press box, originally erected in 1996, were salvaged from the old Wayne Valley Field when that facility was abandoned after the 1988 suspension of the track program.

“We’d like to get in the 2,500-to-3,000-seat range, but we have to see how that fits on the footprint,” De Carolis said.

A permanent, larger metal grandstand has been proposed for several years. The Reser Stadium scoreboard end zone bleachers contain about 4,500 seats, Cheney said.

“That’s the final step,” Taylor said, refering to a permanent grandstand. “It would put us on par with what everyone else has in the Pac-10, and enable us to go after that top recruit and be successful in getting him here.”

Added Fennah: “It would greatly enhance our ability to recruit. There’s no question facilities are important, we’ve seen that across the board at Oregon State.”

The lights are the latest phase of an ongoing improvement project that began in 1997 with an upgrade of the sand-based, natural-grass pitch. OSU also hopes to build a combination soccer/softball clubhouse between Lorenz Field and the softball facility.

However, with Raising Reser II and the Gill Coliseum makeover at the top of the facilities agenda, it’s not a major priority unless OSU receives a dedicated gift for the project.