It’s all hands on deck for the Morgan Hill Unified School District’s maintenance and grounds crew Oct. 4 as more than a dozen employees continue to be hard at work repairing the damage done to the Ann Sobrato High School football field in time for Saturday’s homecoming game.
“We’ll have it ready,” said Joe Stoykovich, MHUSD’s Supervisor of Maintenance Operations, who has been out at the Burnett Avenue campus athletic field with his crew since Monday, Oct. 1.
The Sobrato varsity football team is scheduled to play Yerba Buena for its homecoming game at 2pm Oct. 6. Last week, the Bulldogs were forced to play their home game at nearby Live Oak High School after someone drove onto the field and tore up the grass.
“Someone came in and vandalized, doing donuts out here,” said Stoykovich, pointing to the largest patch at midfield that his crew was laying sod on early Oct. 4. “This was the worst part of it right here, in between the 40s right at the 50-yard line.”
While patching up other smaller areas earlier in the week, MHUSD’s grounds and maintenance staff cut out a 60-foot by 60-foot patch in the middle of the all-grass football field.
“We leveled it. We got the grass at the last minute to fill in today and we’re going to roll it,” said Stoykovich right before he went to work with his staff and began rolling the sod. “After we get all this laid, we’re going to roll it tight and get everything all level again for Saturday’s game.”
Along with the 3,600-square-foot patch, the crew had to patch up large divots throughout the entire field, according to Stoykovich.
“This (grass sod) is what they put down for the Super Bowl,” Stoykovich said. “We did some other patches, too. …We had to cut it out, square it up to put the pieces in and get them to lock in, kinda like a puzzle.”
Stoykovich said the crew will work on the field for the rest of the day Thursday and tomorrow to have it ready for both the junior varsity and varsity homecoming football games. The JV game begins at 11am.
“We got a lot of man hours in on it,” he said.
Morgan Hill Police Sgt. Troy Hoefling said MHPD received a report of vandalism at the Sobrato field Sept. 27, but officers have not identified or arrested any suspects.
