Blue Wahoos Staged Biggest Spring Of Games, Events In Ballpark's History

The predawn darkness on Easter Sunday gave way to a burst of orange, as a sunrise briefly pierced through rain clouds above Pensacola Bay and Blue Wahoos Stadium.

This spectacular artistry in the sky was powerful symbolism among thousands of worshippers gathered for the annual “Community SonRise Service,” which Marcus Pointe Baptist Church has produced with an all-inclusive Easter service since the stadium’s first year in 2012.

“You are brave. You show up even when it’s threatening rain any minute!” said senior pastor Gordon Godfrey Jr., addressing more than 4,000 who attended the service.

It just so happened that inclement weather held off until after the early-morning service, which had the stage in centerfield, the tarp covering the infield and amplified sounds of Marcus Point’s concert singers resonating throughout the ballpark.

Later on Easter Sunday, the Blue Wahoos weren’t so fortunate. Their final game of a season-opening weekend against the Montgomery Biscuits ended with a rare postponement – only the third one since synthetic turf was installed in 2022 at Blue Wahoos Stadium.

But this has been quite a stretch of fulfilling the mission of creating memorable experiences at the ballpark.

From March 2 through April 7, Blue Wahoos Stadium hosted 30 events. A redefined March Madness unlike any other in the ballpark’s history.

Everything from baseball to bocce ball.

“By far, it’s the busiest month or so that we’ve ever had at the stadium,” said Shannon Hannah, the Blue Wahoos events manager, now in her ninth year in this role.

The breakdown includes 18 games in the annual Blue Wahoos Challenge featuring the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, reigning NCAA Division III baseball champions, who have hosted this event consecutively since 2022.

The school is the alma mater of Blue Wahoos’ team owners Quint and Rishy Studer. The nine days that Wisconsin-Whitewater plays games and practices, while arranging games for other teams, gives a huge boost to a team in a cold-weather region.

“It is the most important thing we do,” said Whitewater’s long-time, hall of fame coach John Vodenlich, whose team is now 16-3 on the season with seven of those wins in Pensacola. “We don’t take this for granted. We are very appreciative and so grateful.”

The other baseball games featured the UWF Argos on March 17, plus four high school games involving teams from eight different schools and three different states.

After UWF’s recent announcement of moving up to Division I and joining the Atlantic Sun Conference in all sports, except football, the Argos will be positioned in 2027 to host D-1 teams from any conference in a midweek game, potentially at Blue Wahoos Stadium.

“We always want to be able to come down here at least once a year and represent our university and our town and hopefully let some people see what kind of team we have, what kind of program we have and showcase that in this beautiful ballpark,” said UWF coach Mike Jeffcoat, following his team’s win on March 17 against Georgia Southwestern – the final time UWF will play a Division II opponent at Blue Wahoos Stadium.

“We are always blessed to be able to come down here I can’t thank Quint Studer enough and (team president) Jonathan (Griffith) enougn and everyone for letting us come down here.”

There have been six non-baseball other events. One of those was the second “Wine on the Water” fundraiser event March 7, which included croquet and bocce ball amid the wine tasting and food sampling.

A wedding rehearsal dinner occurred one weekend night, then a celebration of Pensacola High’s boys basketball season on a different weekend night.

There’s been kickball played and tug-of-war staged during a corporate outing by C-Sharp. There’s been a friendly free-for-all for plastic Easter eggs among hundreds of children in the annual “Eggawahooza” on April 4, also sponsored by Marcus Pointe Baptist Church.

“It’s been events of all sorts. It seemed like we had things almost every single day,” Hannah said. “We work hard here. We are not just a baseball facility. That is never what we were built to be. We are a community stadium and we have events year-round.”

All of it made possible by the field surface, which has synthetic turf in all areas except the infield and pitcher’s mound.

“The investment made by (team owners) Quint and Rishy Studer to have this turf field allows us to do all these sorts of things.” Hannah said. “We could not do it without the turf and have this much baseball – up to four games a couple days during the Whitewater visit – plus these other events without a durable playing field.”

The Blue Wahoos will host their final high school game of 2026 on April 7 with Aletheia Christian Academy from Pensacola playing Mountain View Academy from Lawrenceville, Ga., located outside of Atlanta.

This completes a record eight high school games during this prep baseball season.

“We’ve been fortunate to see the interest in hosting high school games grow every year,” Hannah said. “We are energized by this and so happy to welcome all these different teams, different coaches, different players, different families here.”