Douglas to play at home in playoffs afterall

The Douglas High School football team will get a chance to play at home during the playoffs afterall.

The Douglas County School District announced Thursday afternoon that the Atlas Track and Tennis company made the executive decision ot pull the plug for the time being on the all-weather track installation.

Had construction begun as schedule Saturday, the field would have been off limits so as not to disturb the integrity of the settling materials on the track.

However, concerns about the dropping overnight temperatures and a forecast of rain later in the week caused Atlas to delay the installation until the spring.

Daytime temperatures would have been fine for Atlas to commence with the installation, but overnight frost would have delayed the start time each day as crews would have had to wait for the track surface to dry before working on it.

That would have significantly slowed the process and lengthened the work schedule, so Atlas decided to wait for better working conditions, according to Douglas County School District director of business services Holly Luna.

Luna said she and engineer Jeremy Hutchins of R.O. Anderson Engineering were going to ask Atlas for one more day to see if the weather forecast worsened, but Atlas made the call before Luna and Hutchins could ask.

Douglas was informed earlier this week that it wouldn't be able to play at home during the playoffs due to the work on the track. This came after the Tigers had played 11 consecutive games on the road.

With Thursday's announcement, Douglas will now play at home against the High Desert No. 4 seed (still to be determined) next Friday (Nov. 3) at Keith Duke Roman Field.