St. James High School's football field is getting major upgrades.

St. James High School's football field is getting major upgrades.

Tommy Norwood has never been so happy to lose access to his football field.

The St. James coach conducted his final two weeks of spring practice on the adjacent practice fields after the stadium’s natural grass was ripped out in favor of synthetic turf. The project, which is slated to take 8-10 weeks overall, is expected to be ready for the first or second week of fall camp.

Norwood hopes it’s another sign that his current and potential players will see the commitment toward athletics and stay or get involved.

“For us, it’s nothing but a step in the right direction,” Norwood said. “They are seeing that it’s important. There’s a lot of change going on, not only at St. James but other places in Horry County.”

Although there was some confusion over the order of stadium improvements — several county programs had significant track updates planned and executed prior to the synthetic surface approvals and commencements — the construction teams were able to ease some of that by laying a “bridge” down over the track connecting the entryway to the field area.

It consists of an industrial tarp with several hundred pounds of dirt. It allows the heavy equipment to go over the track without damaging the track.

It’s the next stage of a district-wide project that will add synthetic turf surfaces to the eight high schools that previously did not have them (Myrtle Beach already had one courtesy of its co-op with the city). Similar projects at Carolina Forest and Loris are also in various stages of the process.

Socastee, which needed to start earlier since it also required bleacher improvements, is closing on the finality of the turf portion and is expected to have its track completed next month and its bleachers done some time in July.

Aynor, Green Sea Floyds and North Myrtle Beach will have their fields installed next year, with Conway set to follow in 2024.

As far as St. James, the Sharks are hoping to get the same benefits as others who already had the artificial surfaces – and that’s got little to do with game nights.

“One of the problems at our place is when it rains our practice fields get real wet,” Norwood said. “Now, we’re always going to have a place to practice. I think that’ll be a big plus for us.”

Outside of a small number of smaller or unaffiliated all-star events left to be played, the high school season is effectively over after a couple more days.

Before then, several area baseball standouts will have one more opportunity to suit up and represent their respective schools during the South Carolina Baseball Coaches Association All-Star events on Tuesday and Wednesday.

It will include a pair of Select games — the top all-star honor in South Carolina — at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday and 3 p.m. Wednesday at Lexington. The North-South All-Star series will be played those same days at River Bluff and Gilbert. 5A/2A/1A North will face the South squad from the same classifications at 2:30 Tuesday at River Bluff. The 4A/3A game between North and South teams will be played at the same time at Gilbert.

The losers of those two games will face off at 10 a.m. Wednesday, with the winners to follow at 12:30 p.m. Both of those games will be played at Lexington.

Green Sea Floyds star and East Carolina commitment Colby Thorndyke was the lone player named to the South Select roster. However, Horry County was well represented in the North-South games.

Carolina Forest’s Luke Janack (who was also named to the Touchstone Energy Cooperatives Bowl in football last fall), Conway’s Brandon Eldridge, Socastee’s Tre Money and Green Sea Floyds’ Dalton Stroud will all play for the 5A/2A/1A South unit. Aynor’s T.J. Anderson and Carson Krasula were each named to the Class 4A/3A South team.

Only seniors are eligible for the state’s all-star games.

Contact Charles D. Perry at 843-488-7236

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