The high school baseball and softball seasons officially begin Thursday with the Western Maine Conference slated for six season-openers.

At least one of those games, Greely at St. Dom’s, had been postponed due to field conditions as of Wednesday afternoon, so the impact of the near-record snowfall this winter is still being felt around the state.

The Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference schedule begins next Monday. Opening day in the Mountain Valley Conference is more scattered, with the earliest games slated for next Wednesday.

Defending WMC baseball champion Poland will open its season by hosting Freeport. Poland co-curricular director King said the softball team had its first practice on its field Wednesday. The baseball team would have also christened its field for the season, except the Knights had an exhibition game in Gorham. Both teams had been practicing on the soccer fields earlier.

“We’re planning on playing Thursday,” King said. “(The baseball field) is covered with thatch and all the other winter stuff, but I think in a week’s time it’s going to look as good as ever.”

Outside of doing a little shoveling around home plate and the mound, Poland essentially let nature take its course with the baseball field, King said.

“We had some offers to bring some heavy equipment in and clean it and we declined it because we didn’t want to do any damage to it,” he said.

Jay High School was originally scheduled to open at home against Livermore Falls next Wednesday but ended up switching home dates with its rival because Jay’s field won’t quite be ready by then. The April 25 home game with Mt. Abram may also have to be moved to Livermore Falls for baseball, but school officials were certain softball could hold its home-opener then, and baseball could follow on the 28th against Lisbon.

“We’re progressing pretty well the past few days. We’re looking forward to the next few days of warm weather,” Jay athletic director Kenric Charles said. “We aren’t as far behind as people thought we might be. All we need is some warm days and we’ll go.

“My softball field is coming along nicely,” he added. “We walked across it (Wednesday) and they might be able to practice on it Friday. Anytime I get on my softball field before (April) vacation, it’s a bonus.”

New drainage installed at the baseball field two years ago is having the desired affect. Charles said the fields might also have benefited from the large snowstorms that pounded the state early in the winter.

“There’s no frost on the ground this year,” he said. “We may be better off with all the snow and no frost than the years we’ve had not as much snow, but there’s a lot of frost on the ground. We got so much snow so early that the ground hadn’t frozen up. It thawed from the bottom up all winter.”

Many teams have had to cancel preseason scrimmages or move south to play them, some even going out-of-state over next week’s vacation to get some action in prior to the start of the regular season.

Several fields remained at least partially white as of Wednesday. St. Dom’s baseball field was completely covered with snow little more than a week ago. Remnants remained along the right side of the field as of Wednesday, allowing the team some room to practice, but making the field unplayable Thursday.

Edward Little baseball’s home field at Pettengill Park still had a thin layer of snow in the shaded area, from home plate to the backstop and continuing along the first base side in front of the visitor’s dugout into the outfield foul territory. The Eddies aren’t scheduled to play their home-opener until April 28.

Lewiston’s field was clear of snow and should be ready for Monday’s opener against Leavitt.