The Penn Stater Magazine

A Winning Start at Nittany Lion Park

March 28, 2011 at 4:17 pm Ryan Jones Leave a comment

This past weekend marked the opening of Beard Field at Nittany Lion Park, where the softball team swept two games from Wisconsin, an 8-5 victory on Saturday and a 3-2, extra-innings win on Sunday. It was quite the debut.

The new stadium sits in the northwest corner of the intramural field near East Halls. (For those who remember, it’s as if the diamond from the old Nittany Lion Field was picked up, moved about 350 feet west, and reversed so that hitters now swing toward University Drive.) Here’s the view of left field from the seats behind the visitors’ dugout — as with all the images here, you can click to enlarge:

That new scoreboard towers above the left-field wall, which goes about 210 feet at left center. Worth noting that Wisconsin junior Karla Powell hit a homer on Sunday that cleared the scoreboard. It was a bomb.

And here’s the view of the stadium itself, which includes concessions, bathrooms, a press box, and locker and office space for Penn State players and coaches. If you’ve ever been to a Penn State softball game, you know what an upgrade this is.

If you look closely, you might be able to see the stand-up heating lamps they’ve got up on the concourse—great call by somebody. Also, I do believe the dorm in the background is Snyder Hall, where I lived my sophomore year. Since you asked.

Seeing plenty of sunshine in the forecast, and having access to a good camera—we keep a Nikon D40 at the office—I got to pretend I was a real photographer. I took a few half-decent shots on Sunday, the best of which was this:

That’s sophomore first basewoman Kailyn Johnson (who hails from my hometown of Yorba Linda, California!) in the top of the eighth inning, squeezing her mitt on the ball an instant before Wisconsin’s Jennifer Krueger touched the bag. And it’s pretty much in focus! Sometimes I get lucky.

Ryan Jones, senior editor

Entry filed under: Other Penn State sports, University Park campus. Tags: Beard Field, Kailyn Johnson, Lisa Akamine, Nittany Lion Softball Park, Snyder Hall, softball, Wisconsin.