BERNIE -- Around sunset one day in early March, Dalton Hobgood, a Bernie sophomore, took shelter at his grandmother's house as a tornado bore down on his own home.
Within minutes of returning home after the storm had passed, the Hobgood's had a clear view of their sun room from a different angle.
"The entire back room wall fell off," Hobgood said. "You could see inside our house and that was pretty scary."
No sooner had their heart rates returned to normal when Hobgood began fielding messages from baseball teammates concerned about his safety. Word was spreading that their field, a deep fly ball's distance from the Hobgood's home, was severely damaged.
No lives were lost in Bernie but it was estimated that the 300-yard wide EF1 tornado with combined winds of 105 mph that swept through town March 9 leveled small to large farm machinery and caused moderate damage to businesses and homes over an 11 1/2-mile span.
Players and parents flocked to the school the next day only to see that their field wasn't spared.
"Honestly, everybody thought we wouldn't play here all year," Bernie coach Marcus Massey said. "Everything was so out of place and just looked really bad. When the sun rose and kind of illuminated everything, it was worse."
Two telephone poles off the field of play ripped through fences, including one which was snapped at its base and fell onto the field behind third base.
The third-base dugout was completely wiped away while the chain-link backstop fell over and was damaged at the top. Those same strong winds blew down the right-field fence along with the scoreboard directly behind it, which was bent at its base and fell backwards.
Jayce Burk's first thought: a season of such promise, his senior season on his home field, is over.
"I was in shock, I didn't know it was that bad and the thought that we wouldn't get to play there definitely crossed my mind," Burk said.
Since then, the Mules have begun picking up the pieces.
After Mother Nature unleashes fury, human nature inspires the targets to resume their routine. For the Mules, that meant jump-starting the pursuit of a district title on their home field, which is set to host the MSHSAA Class 2 District 1 Tournament starting Saturday, nearly two months to the day the Mules feared it was lost for the season.
As the skies cleared, construction crews began piecing the field back together with the help of the players who held a cleanup day two Saturdays after the storm.
Massey's cellphone rang incessantly with offers of bricks, lumber, earth movers, shovels, rakes and helping hands.
"From that day on everybody has kind of pitched in -- the team, people around the community," Massey said. "It's been amazing to see how a disaster like this can bring people together."
A week later, the entire team helped raise the right-field fence and placed it in a new location, making the field seem much more whole. The Mules hosted their first game later that week.
"We wanted to help immediately, we were ready to play and we knew that wouldn't happened as fast unless we helped," senior Alex Guzman said. "Now it looks like brand new field and we're getting ready to host districts.
"It's been a complete 180."
For several years, the right-field fence at Bernie sat at around 270 feet down the line. But in the aftermath of the storm, Bernie decided to give their home a makeover, moving the fence back nearly 30 more feet to 300 while the gap in right-center field went from 320 to 335.
"We thought while we had the opportunity we'd go ahead and move it back," Massey said. "Now we've got a little bit of a more traditionally sized field that will be a bit more challenging."
More repairs are underway, according to Massey, who said foundation for a new dugout as well as four, 30-foot steel poles which will attach to a new, netted backstop, have been placed.
Massey expects most, if not all, of the repairs to be completed by the end of the week.
"It'll look sharp after that and honestly we're just waiting on the supplies to show up," Massey said. "We've got all the bricks for the dugout, the poles are up and ready to go, and now it's just about getting a crew out to put on the finishing touches."
Though there is still work to do, the light at the end of the tunnel appears to be close. For Massey, the road to get the field back into playing condition and the amount of work it's taken are worth it considering what the it provides for those who play on it.
"It's important to these guys because just eight weeks ago we were curious if we'd even play a game here and now we're hosting districts," Massey said."We were upset at first, but now that you can see the future, it was kind of a blessing in disguise."