Augsburg's Dome A Popular Place As Snow Impacts Spring Sports

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Ah yes, spring softball season. Inside the Augsburg Dome, today it's 12 straight hours of softball. Six teams playing six games, from 7 a.m. to 10 o'clock at night.

"Yeah we keep joking that it's January 75th and we're waiting for spring, so hopefully we'll get there but it's definitely been a weird spring," Melissa Lee said.

Not only is Lee Augsburg's softball coach, she's also the school's game manager, which means she's the point person for scheduling events. She's been a popular person lately.

"Yeah that first weekend I said I've never been hugged by so many people in my life," Lee said.

Because of their dome, Augsburg hasn't missed any games this season. They're right on schedule. And they've become the home field for many of their rivals. This weekend's been pretty typical for a while now.

"We're trying to host as many other MIAC schools and UMAC schools as we can to try to come and play before and after us. This is truly a multipurpose facility, so some days we set up the field and play softball and then we take it down and play lacrosse, and set it all up again," Lee said.

"Augsburg's been a good host school, and we've taken a lot of people in to try and get their games in."

This is already way past when the Dome usually comes down for the year, with no end in sight.

"This year it was scheduled to come down on April 3rd. Then we pushed it back to the 10th. Now we've pushed it back to this Thursday and it's not looking good," Lee said.

Yeah... there's more snow in the forecast for next weekend. So much for spring sports.

"This is as late as it's been up for probably as many years as I've been here," Lee said. "We'll see what happens this week, but mother nature is not cooperating."

Tell me about it.