New facility is kind of magic

With runners at first and second and no outs, McDougal was looking to bunt for a hit when he deadened one nicely down the third-base line. The English off McDougal’s right-handed drag bunt left the ball cueing toward foul territory, but with San Lorenzo Valley waiting for it to roll foul, the ball hit the artificial foul line, and the white turf stripe protruding above the base path pushed the ball back into fair territory for an infield single.

“The field helped me out,” McDougal said.

Then Brody Finale stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and — after junior Spencer Speidel scored the first run of the season on the catcher’s errant throw on a back-pick attempt at third — Finale laced a two-run double to score senior Isaac Roman and McDougal to put the Tigers ahead.

Terra Nova went on to score an insurance run on McDougal’s RBI double in the sixth.

The game was originally slated for Wednesday, but got pushed to Thursday after San Lorenzo Valley did not show up due to a scheduling error. Right-hander Cooper Santamato still earned the opening day start. The senior allowed two runs (one earned) on five hits through four innings to take a no-decision. Senior right-hander Giovanni DeFilippis fired three innings of shutout relief to earn the win.

No one, though, was more jazzed about playing on Terra Nova’s new baseball field — the team’s first home game since May 7, 2024 — as the man with the magic bunt wandoo.

“I’m loving it,” McDougal said. “It’s so nice. I feel so blessed to play on it.”

A near two-year process

Terra Nova’s baseball field has long been a focal point as the first thing you see when you drive onto campus. Nestled in the iconic valley on the west end of the the Park Pacifica neighborhood, the school now houses a sweeping new three-in-one complex, including two baseball diamonds, a relocated softball diamond and a regulation soccer field embedded in the middle.

The Jefferson Union High School District broke ground on the 220,000 square-foot complex in July 2024. Initial costs were estimated at $11.5 million with funding through Measure Z passed on the November 2020 ballot. The complex includes a concession stand, restrooms, scorekeepers’ booths and directional stadium lighting for night games.

The baseball team was allowed onto the baseball diamond for the first time Feb. 2.

“Ecstatic,” Tigers baseball manager Jared Milch said of the team’s reaction. “Kind of a new energy in seeing a place they can call home, finally. Nothing but excitement.”

It was excitement born from skepticism Terra Nova’s baseball diamond would ever get a modern makeover.

“There was talk about it, but we were all a little skeptical,” Finale said.

Weather wreaked havoc on natural grass of old diamond

An opening day at home is a historical rarity for Terra Nova. The Tigers last opened the season with a home game in 2017. Dating back to 2005, the most consecutive home games Terra Nova had ever played to start a season was five straight in 2006. This season, the program opens with the most in that span of modern history with six straight home games.

“I was really excited,” McDougal said. “Because the past two years, we’ve been playing all away games, basically. We’re happy to have attendance here and everybody show up.”

Inclement weather used to wreak havoc on the natural grass at Terra Nova. It would have taken days to get back onto the field after storms like the ones throughout the Bay Area last week.

“We used to have a hole at second base where the water would lake up,” Milch said.

Now, once rains subside, the expectation is to get back on the field not within days, but within hours.

“We would be sweeping out second base on Monday and Tuesday just to get on the field by Saturday, and that’s if there was no more rain,” Milch said. “Now, if it’s raining at 1 (p.m.), we’re on by 2 or 3.”

Even when the weather was nice, Terra Nova could be a tough infield to navigate. Finale, the Tigers’ starting shortstop, endured his share of bad hops as a freshman in 2024.

“I don’t want to hate on my field, but it wasn’t the greatest dirt field,” Finale said.

Finale lives within a mile of campus, and now looks forward to his baseball routine of taking ground balls and developing his defensive craft with regular reps. He even speaks anathema for most high school students, enjoying going to campus on the weekends.

“Just to have during the weekends, and coming down after school to take ground balls, it’s a luxury,” Finale said.

Road warriors and making do

Since even before the district broke ground on the project, Terra Nova baseball players had often been limited to taking batting practice in the batting cages down the left-field line. They would often climb up the hill to Bill Gray Stadium to play catch or hit fungos on a football field that was turfed with synthetic grass years ago.

Once the project broke ground, the Tigers officially started holding off-campus practices, primarily at Pacific Bay Christian nearly two miles away. Last season, Terra Nova played all 26 of its games on the road.

“We always pride ourselves on pitching and defense,” Milch said. “We’ve been doing a lot of that for the last month. We were kind of limited to hitting (before, while on campus).”

Feedback from the baseball players about the new digs has been largely positive.

“It was a rumor for like over a year,” McDougal said. “But my sophomore year is when they started working on the field. They showed a picture of what it looked like, and it looked really nice. I was excited.

“They got it better than I expected.”