Wet weather dampening start to youth soccer seasons

The recent wet weather has had a big impact on numerous youth soccer clubs and teams across southwestern Pennsylvania.

In Beaver County, torrential downpours have flooded the Hopewell Soccer Club’s entire soccer complex on two separate occasions.

The water has created “hours of additional work” for volunteers, as folks work to clean the site for practices and games to resume, according to Referee Assignor Ed Russman.

Teams in Allegheny County have had their schedules affected, too.

While visiting soccer fields in Ohio Township on Wednesday, Channel 11 caught up with Dan Mulligan, Board Secretary for the Avonworth Soccer Association.

Mulligan had swung by to check on the status of the fields.

“It looks like it’s okay now, but it’s been pretty tough with all of the rain,” he said. “We’ve had to cancel pretty much everything up until this point, which is almost going on a month now.”

They managed to get a practice in on Tuesday, and hope to continue to play in the days ahead.

“We have multiple locations, many township parks, county parks, school district fields,” said Otto Tancraitor, President of the North Allegheny Soccer Club. “They’ve all been hit equally as hard, it has been very difficult over the past couple of weeks.”

Tancraitor said that they’ve managed to play some games on the turf field at North Park as an alternative.

Mulligan said his players have also gotten some game time in through renting an indoor facility.

All of the volunteers and leaders part of the clubs are working hard to get players on the fields.

“We’re out there every day trying to weigh ‘is it a good field condition today, will it cause long-term damage to the field? Is it a safety concern for the kids?’ So we’re out looking at the fields every day trying to make the best judgment we can with the information we have any given day,” Tancraitor said.

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