MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Monongalia County and Morgantown officials have accepted an invitation from the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission to bid on hosting the high school baseball state tournament from Monongalia County Ballpark.
“I have a sense of urgency about us actively participating in this bidding process, on behalf of Monongalia County and our region as a whole,” said Susan Riddle, executive director of the Greater Morgantown Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Riddle is heading the joint-effort committee from across the county which will submit a bid package. The tournament has been held in Charleston for decades, wrapping up this past year’s high school sports season at Appalachian Power Park last week.
“We have great facilities throughout West Virginia,” said SSAC executive director Bernie Dolan. “It’s an opportunity for communities to put their best foot forward. We are certainly not unhappy with Appalachian Power Park — it’s a phenomenal facility and has done a great job. This is just the process that we go through.”
Host schools for facilities in Beckley, Bluefield and Princeton, along with Charleston again, also were invited to submit bids. University High is serving as the host school submitting Morgantown’s bid.
Those schools had 10 days, starting earlier this week, to accept the SSAC’s invitation for putting a bid together.
“We responded immediately,” Riddle said. “The SSAC knows that we are interested and want to submit a bid. We’re going to put our best foot forward and see what we can do to win the bid.”
The winning host site would be awarded the tournament for three years, with an option to host for a fourth.
“Morgantown is a pretty awesome place to hold any kind of event,” Riddle said. “We have a state of the art facility in Monongalia County Ballpark and it’s hard not to be impressed with that facility. We have more than 2,700 hotel rooms every day in our inventory for the region.
“We have restaurants, hotels, and (shopping plazas) right around the corner from the ballpark – we can offer convenience,” she continued. “When we have individuals come to our region, we’re really above average and very good at ‘wowing’ our guests. That really plays in our favor.”
Monongalia County Ballpark hosts the West Virginia Black Bears minor league baseball team and WVU baseball home games.
One potential obstacle for Morgantown could arise if WVU earn the opportunity to host an NCAA regional, the dates of which typically conflict with the state tournament. The Mountaineers were a No. 2 seed this past year and narrowly missed out on hosting.
Riddle has been in contact with officials for the Black Bears and with WVU.
“The Black Bears are thrilled and have been in these discussions with us from the very beginning,” Riddle said. “This is not a one-person or one-organization effort. We work as a team and this is collaboration at is finest – there are a lot of moving parts. We will have to make sure as a part of our bid that we satisfy any type of potential scheduling conflicts.
“We’ve already discussed it and there are ways to collectively accommodate that,” she continued. “We will have contingency planning. We will just make sure that we put the spit and polish on our proposal and hopefully make it an attractive option for them, to win the bid, that’s our goal.”
Dolan said the deadline for bid proposals would likely be July 13, with the SSAC board of directors voting on the winning bid at a meeting July 19-20.
“We’re going to put our best foot forward,” Riddle said. “We have an opportunity to continue to showcase not just our area, but the state of West Virginia.”