Light It Up: Verbena baseball plays first night game in program history
Published 11:14 am Friday, March 14, 2025
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By Carey Reeder | Managing Editor
“We all felt like the big leaguers under the lights of some great stadium.”
After nearly 100 years, Verbena High School’s baseball program finally got its chance to play under the lights and feel like The Sandlot boys on July 4 as the school’s new flood lights lit up the school’s baseball field and the Verbena sky on March 7.
The Red Devils hosted West Blocton High School for the school’s first night game, and Houston Brothers and Noah Sullivan each went 2-for-3 to lead Verbena at the plate with both collecting an RBI. Ryan Simmons recorded a double, and Kaden Coggins and Jacob Morris each knocked a single. Jackson Brothers was given the ball on the mound for the night game.
West Blocton won 8-2, but the final score was not indicative of the magnitude of the moment for the Verbena community.
“It was a great environment, we had a big crowd, West Blocton brought a great crowd and it was a lot of fun,” Verbena head coach Allen Brothers said. “To have lights at Verbena is awesome, and it’ll be a change and an adjustment.”
The moment was captured before the game with the national anthem and Chilton County Schools Superintendent Corey Clements throwing out the first pitch after his work, along with the CCS school board, to help secure the funding for the field lights.
“Now, we are a part of Verbena history,” Allen Brothers said.
In the spring of 2023, CCS was conducting their annual town hall meetings when the topic of Verbena’s baseball field not having lights was brought up at their meeting. The conversation centered around VHS having the only baseball field in the county without lights, while other facilities have lights and the freedom to play till whenever they please.
VHS Principal Jacob Garrett recalled playing high school baseball at Verbena when the later games would be called in the first or second inning due to losing light and not having lights to turn on. There were past instances where plans for lights at the VHS baseball field were in the works, and they went as far as having Alabama Power donate wooden poles for them and a booster club member agreeing to donate the lights. However, the poles sat out untouched until new regulations were passed that new lights had to be steel poles as opposed to wooden ones.
“Time constraints are huge having to play single games every day, which is a burden on the parents to have to take off work and pay admission every day,” Garrett said last April. “A lot of the community members see every other ballpark with lights, and here we were without them. Everybody is super excited to get on pace with everyone else.”
After the town hall meeting in April 2023, Clements and CCS gathered all the necessary letters, photos and grant applications and requested $375,000 from the state education budget and Alabama Lt. Governor Will Ainsworth. CCS received $200,000 for the project in the summer of 2023, and the project was bid out and came back with a $379,000 price tag. CCS was still $179,000 short of the estimate, and Clements asked the school board for the rest out of local funds to get to the final number for the project. The request was passed at the April 2024 board meeting for Verbena’s baseball field to receive steel-frame poles and top-of-the-line flood lights that will have a bigger shine than just illuminating the diamond each spring. Now, those lights are up and functioning.
“There are a lot of good things happening at Verbena,” Clements said last April. “It has really changed a lot within the last five to 10 years, but a lot of positive change is going on in the school and community. We are thrilled to be able to do something like this where everybody wins.”
Allen Brothers did not set up the 2025 schedule to include many night games but plans to expand those opportunities next year. The plan for Verbena baseball in 2026 is to go to a more traditional schedule with the junior varsity team playing in the evening and varsity games to follow afterwards in the night time.
“This gives our players the chance to have the opportunities and experiences like other kids,” Allen Brothers said. “We pushed being the (Chicago) Cubs for years because we always played in the afternoons. It gave us challenges when we traveled because other teams had lights and we did not get to practice under them a whole lot. Now, the playing field is a bit more level. Lights are a huge advantage for us in getting caught up with everyone else.”