New Marble Falls ISD baseball facility is designed for growth

CAPTON: The clubhouse at the new Marble Falls Independent School District’s baseball field, which will be located north of Mustang Stadium. Graphic courtesy of Marble Falls Independent School District

When the Marble Falls Independent School District opens the new baseball facility at its high school in spring 2027, it will have pieces that put it on the scale of what might be found on the collegiate level.

That’s according to some who have looked at the sketches.

“I did find out finally that there weren’t many changes from the original ones, which I was heavily involved with,” head coach Tyler Porter said. “I told (Assistant Superintendent Stan) Whittle and everybody that there’s a lot of stuff I want that’s cool, but all I really care about is what’s inside the fences and what we use for player development. I want to have a nice field. I want to have plenty of cage space to hit in, plenty of mounds to throw on – that’s the important stuff.”

The playing surface will be artificial turf created by Symmetry Sports Construction with a pitcher’s mound, home plate, bases, base paths, infield, outfield, foul territory and a warning track. Symmetry already has turf as Scearce Softball Field for the Lady Mustangs.

It will have seating for more than 300 fans, a press box with a public address system and home and visitor dugouts will be built.

Parallel to the third base line, much like today, are the batting cages. But the new ones will have four tunnels instead of two, which is what the Mustangs have now.

“It’ll be double of what we have now, which is awesome,” Porter said. “It’s close and convenient. Having the four tunnels is so big as we grow our program, because right now we can really hit semi-comfortably with 12 kids. If you have four cages, you can hit closer to 24 if you do it right. As we grow closer to 40, 50, 60 kids, that’s a big deal for us.”

And located in the left field corner behind the wall is the bullpen to warm up middle relievers and a closer. The bullpen will have three pitching mounds and home plates.

“In a game, we probably never warm up three guys,” Porter said. “As small as we are right now, we have trouble warming up one guy sometimes during a game. But for practice purposes, that’s huge. Because right now we have two mounds that are dirt mounds in a grass bullpen and you have to maintain the mounds. The mounds are kind of close together, so throwing two guys at once is going to be problematic. So having three mounds that are spread out in a space like that, but also the fence will be cut open, kind of like TCU. There’s chain link (fence) there so you can see out into the field. You can still see what you’re doing while locked into a separate space. It’s really a good setup and gives us that shallow left field look.”

He envisions having the reliever, if he’s not already in the lineup playing another position, getting warmed up with the backup catcher in the bullpen and then communicating when he wants to change pitchers using walkie talkies, asking an assistant to get the reliever, or something similar.

Attached to the home dugout is the Mustangs’ clubhouse, just like they do now. But the new one will include a place for trainers to attend to players, varsity and junior varsity locker rooms with bathrooms, sinks and a shower and coaches office with a dressing room and bathroom complete with a shower.

Because of costs, some parts are gone: concession stand with men’s, women’s and family restrooms, the awning that was going to be built to provide shade for fans, and sunken dugouts.

“But it doesn’t impact our baseball kids’ ability to develop and enjoy the experience they have while they’re here,” Porter said. “And that was a big step to me. So I was very happy when I saw what they finally had. It might be scaled down in some small areas. But the overall theme is still awesome and going to be a really good place.”

Athletic director Keri Timmerman said this facility is the result of numerous conversations with multiple people, including Huckabee and Associates, Inc., which are the architects of record.

“(There) has really been a rush to get everything organised and make sure we didn’t lose what we promised the community and what we promised our kids and it’s been great to see Huckabee really kind of helped keep that that vision alive,” he said. “I’m really excited about it. We’re really trying to make sure that we’re thinking, how is someone that’s going to be in here long term after us in 10, 15, 20 years feeling? You can add on to it functionally or just have what it is. And it’s going to be useful and still taken care of and thoughtfully designed, just because that’s the goal. You don’t want to ever feel like you’re designing something for a short term.”