Episcopal Day School hosted the blessing and dedication of the new baseball complex at its Flowing Wells Road campus on Tuesday. The blessing was officiated by the Rev. Ted Clarkson, rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, and the celebrant was school chaplain the Rev. Sonia Clifton.
“The outfield is natural grass,” said Scott Tomlinson, the school’s director of Institutional Advancement, about baseball field’s makeup, which includes an infield of coconut husk and a portable pitcher’s mound. “One of the reasons that we did an artificial infield is so that we can quickly move the field from high school dimensions to middle school.”
The field is 310 feet down each line and 357 feet down center field. The field was made both to accommodate to quick adjustments between both high school and middle school baseball teams as well as maintain the natural portions of the field.
“The goal was to be able to play this spring,” said head of school Ned Murray. “If we’d used real grass that we’d just planted now, we wouldn’t have grass to play.”
Construction on the field began in December 2021 and was complete by Feb. 22. The complex was the result of a partnership with Drive Baseball, LLC, and was part of an overall master plan of developing the 38-acre Flowing Wells Campus.
The school acquired the land nearly 10 years ago after administration realized that more space was needed, Murray says. The project to develop it entailed three main components.
“Obviously, you’re looking at sports and fitness,” said Murray. “There’s also a center of what we call faith and family and community, so there’s a community amphitheater and a community lawn. We have wedding receptions, parties and outdoor worship. And so this is a place for the community to do those things.”
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The campus had its ribbon-cutting ceremony Feb. 23, 2020. By March 13, 2020, it had to close due to COVID-19. The facility reopened in time to start the 2021-2022 school year.
The baseball field, the adjacent multi-sport field and the entire campus is not only for Episcopal Day School students, Murray says, but is available for homeschool teams, travel teams and even for rentals.
“We didn’t build this whole beautiful campus just for our kids. We built this as a place where the community can come and interact with,” said Murray. “There’s a misperception that we build these world class facilities for just our middle schoolers. We built it for the community and they’re out here all the time.”
The Baseball Complex and the Episcopal Day School Flowing Wells Campus are located at 1337 Flowing Wells Rd.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering education in Columbia County and business-related topics for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
