The rain will just not go away. It’s causing headaches to Lawrence school district administrators and contractors working on the high school outdoor athletic field upgrades.

Lawrence High School is a bit more behind than Free State.

“If we could have put all this rain into one month or a couple weeks, it would have helped us out quite a bit,” operations and facility planning division director Tom Bracciano said.

Most notably, the Lions’ soccer field on the south side of the property remains a muddy mess. The district can’t seem to find enough dry days to get down fly ash, a coal byproduct added to soil to harden the fields’ base.

“You can’t get on the field to put it (fly ash) down when the field’s too wet to run your equipment there,” Bracciano said. “Everything has to be just right. That’s what’s really caused us delays on that project.”

But the district has a backup plan. The LHS baseball field is ready and just a few stripes away from the goal.

“This field won’t be needed for baseball until spring,” Bracciano said. “We’ll be able to get the soccer kids on here to practice instead of going to Holcom.”

Bracciano also said a 40-yard football field will be striped on the girls’ softball field for practices or for the junior varsity to use.

Contractors also are working on 20-foot-wide concrete paths that run south and west along the school’s natatorium to access the home bleachers during construction. The visitors’ bleachers will not be completed or open for the first home game Sept. 4.