ONA, WV (WOWK) – Parents and students at Huntington High School and Cabell Midland High School say they were excited to have new soccer fields this year. Only one has been completed and the other has been delayed, leaving many parents upset.

The two improvement projects, which include spending nearly $400,000 of the Cabell County School District’s general fund on new sod and installing water cannons, were approved in the Fall of 2022 by the school board.

The Huntington High School soccer field improvements started in the spring of this year and have been completed. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Monday night.

However, the same cannot be said for the Cabell Midland High School project which was delayed six weeks.

School officials say this is because a decision was made to allow a lacrosse team made up of members of different schools to use the field at the same time construction was scheduled to begin. Now, the boys’ and girls’ varsity and junior varsity teams will have to play on the football field until further notice.

Parents like William Gill, whose daughter is a senior and plays for the girls’ soccer team, say they’re upset and that this situation is “unacceptable.”

“The boys’ team, they also don’t have a field to play. I think somebody should be held accountable for the actions they did to keep this field from being put in,” Gill said as he prepared to watch his daughter play her first game of the season Monday.

In response to these concerns, school officials say they met with the coaches and the company making the installations Monday morning and they’re hoping to accelerate their efforts to have the field ready as soon as possible.

It’s still unclear if the project will be complete before the end of the season. Officials say an estimated completion date has not been determined yet.