New Ladd-Peebles GM: Excessive College video games will return to historic Cell Stadium this season

Highschool soccer will return to Cell’s Ladd-Peebles Stadium for the 2022 season.

New Stadium common supervisor C.J. Drinkard advised AL.com’s The Lede this week that the primary sport can be Thursday, Aug. 25. The groups haven’t been introduced.

“We can have that contract solidified throughout the subsequent couple of days,” Drinkard mentioned Tuesday afternoon. “However I can guarantee you that they may play video games right here. So proper now, we’re simply ensuring that the main points are what the main points should be. However they may play video games right here, with the primary one being the twenty fifth, which is subsequent Thursday.”

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Cell County Public College officers haven’t introduced the total schedule for his or her excessive colleges this season. Solely the areas of this week’s opening video games formally have been introduced. None of these shall be performed at Ladd.

The Cell County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to fulfill Thursday morning.

“There’ll be between 10 to fifteen video games right here,” Drinkard mentioned. “So, we’ll have a gradual stream of video games all through the season. And, you recognize, so far as subsequent 12 months is anxious, we’ll go to subsequent 12 months in direction of the top of the season. However my hopes are that we deliver again these colleges like Murphy and Williamson, who just about gained’t have a discipline of their very own subsequent 12 months.”

MCPSS officers introduced last October that their teams would no longer play at Ladd following a capturing within the Stadium’s concourse throughout the closing minutes of an Oct. 15, 2021, sport between Vigor and Williamson. It was the second capturing in three years throughout an MCPSS sport at Ladd. In 2019, nine people were injured by gunfire at a LeFlore-Williamson game.

These shootings led MCPSS to maneuver the rest of the 2021 video games to different websites and search for choices sooner or later. The biggest faculty system within the state later announced it would build on-campus stadiums at LeFlore, Davidson, Williamson B.C. Rain and Vigor.

Nevertheless, these stadiums are usually not prepared for the 2022 season. Additionally, Murphy, which has lengthy performed house video games at Ladd, is landlocked and doesn’t have a house stadium nor a plan for any future stadium at this level, although officers and Board members have lengthy mentioned they’re taking a look at choices for the Panthers.

Six MCPSS excessive colleges — Mary G. Montgomery, Baker, Alma Bryant, Theodore, Blount and Citronelle – have already got on-campus stadiums.

The present plan, in accordance with Cell coaches, is for Davidson to play house video games at Baker (because it did final 12 months), B.C. Rain to play house video games at Alma Bryant and Vigor to play video games at Blount.

That would depart Murphy, Williamson and sure LeFlore searching for house fields. LeFlore’s stadium is the closest to being completed however gained’t be in time for subsequent week’s house opener towards rival Williamson.

Citronelle already introduced on social media that its Oct. 6 sport towards Williamson can be performed at Ladd.

Management at Ladd has modified since final fall with Drinkard, a former CFL and Tuskegee quarterback, taking up because the venue’s common supervisor after longtime supervisor Vic Knight died in Might.

Drinkard didn’t return follow-up calls, texts or emails from AL.com Tuesday.