By JOSEPH KELLARD
As the Sailors' varsity team was outscoring Lawrence High School on OHS's football field, a generator was overheating and caused a transformer to catch fire and blacked out the game, according to the Oceanside Fire Department. Oceanside was winning 10-2 when the game was suspended. The teams resumed play the next day and Oceanside won, 13-5.
John Madden, a captain of the OFD, said that at the time of the blackout lights were on at both the football field and a softball field.
"Both sets of lights are not supposed to run at the same time," said Madden, who added that he was told this by unnamed school authorities at the scene. "The generator and transformer they have is too small to run both lights. So the generator overheated, causing the transformer to start smoking. That set off the alarm, which notified the fire department. And while we were there the lights went off on the field."
Under the command of Chief Dan Sabatino, the OFD took about one hour to extinguish the fire and investigate the scene. The damage to the transformer "wasn't too bad," Madden said.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Herb Brown said the lights on both fields should be able to be on simultaneously, and that the district is working on fixing the transformer.
"I think there was an overload in the way it was installed, and the engineer was down there [Monday] to try to fix it," Brown said. "...That's what the engineer is checking to see, why it was hooked up improperly or why the transformer is not holding both lights."
Meanwhile, on April 26 there was a problem with the lights at the football field before another OHS and Lawrence lacrosse game that had to be postponed.
"That was a similar problem," Brown said, "which they came and fixed, but I have a feeling it wasn't fixed properly...Once this is done properly, we will be able to have both lights on at the same time."
When the lights blacked out May 14, the game was in the fourth period. The teams returned to OHS the next day to complete the final 8:18 minutes of the game.
"The game was still going on and we offered to go light up the field so they could finish the game," Madden said. "[School authorities] told us not to bother. We just lit up the exists so that all the fans could leave the field safely."
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