Brenau University will host a celebration of the inaugural Golden Tigers softball season on Pacolet Milliken Field at Ernest Ledford Grindle Athletics Park at 4:30 Tuesday. The ceremony and the subsequent doubleheader for the No. 3-in-the-nation Golden Tigers team are free and open to the public, but parking is limited at the site.
Parking will be available at the Brenau Amphitheatre near the intersection of Washington Street Southeast and Brenau Lane Northeast on the Gainesville campus with shuttle service to and from the park beginning at 4 p.m. and running throughout the evening.
The Golden Tigers (39-5 overall, 18-0 SSAC) are currently ranked No. 3 in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and first in the Southern States Athletic Conference.
Prior to the 5 p.m. start for the twinight bill against Faulkner University, there will be a ceremonial first pitch and brief presentation honoring the benefactors for the first phase of the new athletics facility – Pacolet Milliken, Inc., which donated the land for the park adjacent to its New Holland Mill, and the Melvin Douglas and the Victoria Kay Ivester Foundation, Inc., started by the two former New Holland residents.
South Carolina-based Pacolet Milliken Enterprises, Inc., made possible the development of the multiuse athletics park when it donated the 16.8-acre tract of land adjacent to the Milliken & Co. mill on Jesse Jewell Parkway. Doug Ivester, a brenau trustee, and his wife Kay provided funding in 2014 for the first phase of the park, which is named for Kay Ivester’s father.
