When it comes to having a home team advantage, the Ringgold Middle School Tigers are batting zero. But that will soon change.
The school is on deck to have its very own softball and baseball fields. The softball field is predicted to be complete in time to play a few games near the end of this fall, wrapping up construction that began in March, and the baseball field is planned to be complete in time for baseball season, which kicks off in February.
Coaches and parents are looking forward to the convenience the two new fields - which include press boxes, locker rooms, restrooms and an indoor hitting facility - will provide. The middle school teams have been using the county's Jack Mattox Recreation Complex and Ringgold High School fields for practices and games.
"It should allow for more of our students to attend our home games since they won't have to go off campus," said RMS Principal Jeff Fricks. "It's just a great selling point and a great addition to our school when you drive through here and you see these nice fields and nice facilities that are being built."
The fields have been in planning for several years, and are finally coming to fruition thanks to 2016 Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds. ESPLOST is a voter-approved 1-cent sales tax levied on all consumer purchases in Catoosa County. The funds generated are exclusively for educational capital outlay expenditures such as new classrooms, maintenance and renovation of schools, school transportation and more.
With RHS and RMS located next to each other, space for the middle school to have its own fields was not always available. That changed in 2014 when Catoosa County Schools purchased facilities for the district's maintenance and transportation departments to house equipment elsewhere. The departments were formerly next to the schools.
"There is a road that goes between the middle school and the high school that will actually be moved," Fricks said. "That road went to where the transportation and maintenance department was, and that's allowing extra room for the fields to be built."
Ringgold was the only middle school in the district to not have its own fields.
"We're all excited about it," Fricks said. "We can see the fields from our school when we look out many of our classrooms, which is bringing more excitement."
Contact Sarah Turner at 423-757-6579.