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John Hunt, Director of Grounds at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, and Seth Thibodeaux, Head Coach of the NSU baseball team knew they had a drainage problem on their hands at the campus baseball facility, but they weren’t quite sure what to do about it.

South Louisiana is known for frequent afternoon and early evening thunderstorms in the Spring and Summer months. NSU’s field held water and remained soggy after even modest rains, so much so, that it began to affect play and scheduling for the Colonels.

“It would take us 3-5 hours just to get the field playable after a rain,” said Hunt. “We had a particularly rainy season last year, and after a good rain, we couldn’t even prep the field or cut the grass until a day after the storms passed.”

That scenario caused schedule conflicts for Nicholls, and on at least one occasion, rather than cancel a game due to a poorly drained field, coaches opted to move a game to New Orleans, in order to keep the scheduled date.

That’s when Coach Thibodeaux knew he had to solve his drainage problems. He met with Hunt, and together they called Steven Gros at QSM in Schriever, LA.

“We told Steven what our problems were, and he was quick with an answer,” says Hunt. “He said we should use Hydraway. It’s a product I had heard a little about, but I’d never seen it before. Steven told us about its innovative design and materials. He assured us it would do the trick.”

According to Hunt and Thibodeaux, Hydraway did everything Gros promised.

“It’s amazing,” says Thibodeaux. “We put the product in this summer, after the 2013 season. We’re in Fall practice sessions right now, and there isn’t a single day where I don’t have players coming up to me to remark about how great it is to play on this field now that we have Hydraway installed.”

The Hydraway Turf Drainage system features a unique core design that has been tested to exceed 9200 psf. It has the highest inflow rate in the industry, and is superior to traditional drain pipe in sports turf applications because (1) the entire surface allows water to flow through it, and (2) its high compressive strength won’t fail on the job site due to heavy equipment.

Unlike traditional pipe systems, where water has to seek holes, and where drainage then moves ineffectively, a Hydraway system allows water to flow through its unique needle-punched, non-woven, geotextile fabric. The fabric is supported by an HDPE core in a grid pattern that quickly facilitates the fastest flow rate in the industry.

The result: sports fields that drain properly; sports fields that allow teams to play.

Coach Thibodeaux says, “We got to a point where we weren’t spending any time with our players on game days because we had the whole staff working on the field.”

But now? “Put simply: We don’t have drainage problems anymore,” he said.

NSU contracted with a company to perform a laser leveling of the field. Following that, they called on QSM to provide them with Hydraway materials and advice. Chackbay Nursery installed the system. The project was completed in early August.

When asked to reflect on his experience with the Hydraway System, Thibodeaux said, “Look, I am a big believer that the game of baseball is meant to be played on natural grass. We were having problems maintaining our grass field, but that isn’t an issue anymore. We can get back on the field in record time, and it probably saved us more than $400,000 when compared with other options we were considering.”

The time for installation was approximately two weeks, but, says Hunt, “go figure, we had a couple of hard rains during that time. If not for that, we could’ve been finished even sooner.”