By Joe Bachman

Three local softball and baseball teams vied for use of Robinson North Field on Wednesday, Mar. 30, at the Parks & Recreation meeting.

The three organizations, the Wisconsin Rapids Youth Sports Association (WRYSA), The Rapids Fire Fastpitch, and Rapids Rebels all made requests to use Robinson Park’s North Field for practice during the coming softball season. The process of allocating field use was harder than expected in the meeting.

In the past, WRYSA has shared the field with Rapids Fire and Assumption High School, who has priority over the two. Rapids Rebels, is a new baseball team that now requested to use the same park.

“I think all of the groups would agree that Assumption Varsity and middle school will have priority for both fields [North and South Robinson Park fields] during the season,”said City Attorney Susan Schill. In the past, both WRYSA and Rapids Fire shared the field with no qualms.

“We’ve had no issues,” said WRYSA President Trevor Oleson. “We’re okay with where we stood last year, [with Rapids Fire] we got our contracts in place, they have their time, we have our time. — we have 600 kids in our organization, and we can’t afford to lose anymore time on Robinson Field.”

By meeting’s end, WRYSA and Rapids Fire were approved for field lease agreements, and Rapids Rebels will need to seek approval from other fields for contracted use.