CEDAR RAPIDS — The first day of the five-day state 3A and 4A baseball tournament at Veterans Memorial Stadium was weird Monday, but not so much that the event spiraled into a weeklong mess.

It rained in the stadium during the second inning of the second game Monday afternoon, when 3A first-rounder Marion finally beat Center Point-Urbana. It rained hard. Really hard. For a while.

The strange thing was that the deluge hung right over the stadium. In most of Cedar Rapids, it either stayed dry or the rain wasn’t enough to give the yards a proper soaking.

“We could have gone two miles either way and we would have been playing,” Dubuque Wahlert Coach Kory Tuescher said.

His team traveled from Dubuque to Cedar Rapids on Monday afternoon, watched the rain fall, then received word that the 3A game against Central DeWitt, scheduled for 7:30 p.m., had been postponed until 9 a.m. Tuesday due to a three-hour rain delay.

The Golden Eagles felt a temporary sense of disappointment and resentment as they returned home for the night, knowing they would have to get up very early the next morning to catch the same bus.

“We’re just a team,” Tuescher said. “I want to thank Andy (Iowa High School Athletic Association associate director Andy Umthun) and his staff for doing what’s best for everyone.

“We — myself included — got angry for about 30 minutes last night and thought, ‘Why, why, why?’ Once we changed our mindset and behavior and talked to our guys about it, it was great.

“My alarm went off at 4:30 today. We started texting everyone. Not a single person was late for the 5:20 train from Wahlert. By the time we got to Marion about 20 minutes later, we had the Bluetooth on and were listening to music on the bus. I knew right away that we were ready. There was no, ‘Oh my God, it’s 6:20 in the morning.’”

The top-seeded Golden Eagles then engaged in a fierce pitching duel with Central. Wahlert scored the game’s only run with a wild pitch in the bottom of the seventh inning and will return to Cedar Rapids for Wednesday’s 3A semifinal against Sioux City Heelan.

If the stadium’s drainage system and grounds crew were not so reliable, Monday’s delay would have been much longer. It would have really disrupted the schedule of the 5-day event.

Unfortunately, more of the same happened Tuesday afternoon. The sky darkened, thunder was heard and the rain returned in the fourth inning of the afternoon Johnston-Waukee Northwest 4A game. That pushed back the remaining two games of the day.

The 4A quarterfinals between Iowa City High and Waukee at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday has been moved to 2 p.m. Wednesday C’est la vie. The tournament will be back on track soon, and it seems like the perfect venue for it.

Cedar Rapids is hosting a state baseball tournament for the first time in 50 years. It’s there this year because the University of Iowa’s baseball stadium is under renovation and will not be able to host the 4A and 3A games for the fourth year in a row.

Cedar Rapids has the better venue, and it’s not particularly close. Iowa’s Duane Banks Field, with or without the renovations, has a cramped and unfriendly parking situation with a capacity of 2,100. Vets Memorial’s capacity of 5,300 is more than enough to handle the tournament. Parking is good. So is the stadium’s seating and foyer.

“It’s awesome,” Cedar Rapids Kennedy Coach Bret Hoyer said. “The venue is top-notch.”

Hoyer might have been generous after the Cougars scored four runs in the bottom of the sixth for a 6-3 first-round 4A win over Pleasant Valley on Tuesday, but he’s seen a lot of state tournaments. He’s actually coached a lot.

This is Kennedy’s 15th trip to the state under Hoyer, but his first since 2015. Playing at home is great from a convenience standpoint, but there’s more to it than that for the Cougars.

“There are so many friends, family and alumni here,” he said. “Everyone gets to see these kids and what they’re made of.”

Hoyer has terrific baseball players. Every team here does. They play in a professional stadium that’s not big enough to swallow them, but big enough to give them the stage they deserve.

Let’s do this again here sometime, like next year or so.

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