ShawneeDispatch.com

Shawnee mostly was spared of heavy damage from storms that pelted the region Thursday night and Friday morning. But high winds took a bite out of the 3&2 Baseball East and West Complexes.

Field 2 at the East Complex, and fields 12 and 21 at the West Complex sustained heavy damage to their outfield fences.

Arturo Aguilar, Dean Schurr and Kenny South with the Johnson County Park and Recreation District spent about five hours on Friday repairing the outfield fence on field 12, a youth field with 125-foot fences. By noon the fence was almost completely repaired.

"We've got 5 o'clock games," Schurr said. "We'll be ready to play."

That night games were played on schedule.

Jeff Chalk, executive director for 3&2, said games also were played as scheduled on field 21.

"We just took the fence down and played over the weekend, and we will continue to play without the center and left field portions of the fence until we can get it fixed," he said. "It will be a work in progress."

Chalk said that Saturday games on field 2 were moved to other fields. That fence has since been repaired and games can be played as scheduled.

Chalk said the only part of field 2 not repaired is the batter's eye - the windscreen that usually covers the fence. That will take a bit longer to replace. Chalk said the estimated cost to replace it would be $22,000.

Chalk praised the grounds crew for responding quickly to the damage and making sure games started on time after the storm.

"There was no disruption to our schedule thanks to our ground guys that got the fields ready to play," he said. "They did a great job."