It’s not that the people at Petrides High School are angry at other schools that have gotten their baseball fields refurbished by the Department of Education and the PSAL.

Jealous? Maybe. Confused? Definitely.

“It’s not like we’re in Brooklyn; we’re lucky to have our own field,” said Anthony Hillery, the longtime Panthers head coach, who stepped down after last season with a 2017 PSAL city championship on his resume. “But if you look around, everyone [on Staten Island] has had their field done.

“What happened to us?”

While the rain this week wasn’t necessarily heavy, it still managed to turn the Panthers’ Sunnyside field into its usual quagmire. Two puddles filled the batters’ box; more water resided around both first and third base; and the worst of the mess was reserved for the area near shortstop, spreading into the shallow portion of the outfield.

“[Thursday] was the worst I’ve seen in a while,” said first-year head coach Joey Pena. “We spent almost the entire practice fixing the field.”

“We spent 40 minutes just working on the field,” confirmed sophomore shortstop Rocky Molinare, who couldn’t take grounders again on Friday, as the players were relegated to just tossing the ball around the deeper parts of the outfield.

“It’s very frustrating. I know it affects a lot of our infielders,” added junior catcher Lorenzo LaMattina. “Third and first base are destroyed, so you can’t take infield reps. The same with the home plate area.”

Trying to conduct batting practice is also a work of fiction. Still, with all these problems, Petrides owns a 9-4 PSAL AA division record entering Saturday’s rescheduled regular-season finale against CSI/McCown. The game was supposed to be in Sunnyside, but the unplayable conditions has moved it to New Springville LL.

The aforementioned frustration stems from the fact that the field has never received any major makeover – dating back to when the College of Staten Island began using it in 1978.

“In 46 years, the field has never been done,” said Hillery. “Meanwhile, schools like Curtis, Tottenville and Port Richmond have had their fields done twice.”

While the adjacent football field has been renovated, the baseball diamond is still populated by mud, high grass and dandelions.

“We only have one custodian here for the entire campus,” shrugged Tony D’Alessandro, the Petrides JV coach and varsity assistant, who has been with the school’s baseball program since its inception in 1998.

Aside from directly affecting games, the Sunnyside swamp has also been a factor when it comes to players’ futures.

“It doesn’t put us in a good position,” said LaMattina. “Other schools get more work in. Our guys can’t progress, so 100 percent it affects us when it comes to possibly getting scholarships. For someone like Rocky, he might have to deal with a couple of bad hops at shortstop that could lead to some bad throws to first base. What if a college coach is watching? On a good field, that doesn’t happen.

“There are no bleachers or stands for college coaches to sit and watch us. I remember last year when a college coach came here and he had to stand behind the backstop … it must have been pretty miserable for him.”

The lack of seating has also meant that parents are often forced to watch their sons from their cars, situated on an asphalt road located on a hill beyond the right-fielder.

And the unattractive facilities have influenced some promising ballplayers attending Petrides’ middle school to leave for better equipped programs at other high schools.

“I’d rather play away games at Curtis or [McKee/S.I.] Tech than play at home,” Molinare noted.

“Many of our middle school kids leave for Catholic high schools,” said D’Alessandro. “If we had a nicer campus, maybe more kids would stay.”

The situation has also cost Petrides financially.

“Some Island coaches run summer camps out of their school. I was always reluctant,” admitted Hillery. “Not only was I worried about kids getting hurt [because of the poor conditions], but because I didn’t want to draw attention to the field. I didn’t want to show it off.”

And when foul balls pop into the air and travel behind home plate, there’s no covering above the backstop to block them. Instead, the foul balls carry into the high weeds behind the field, where they are often lost forever.

“We’re hemorrhaging balls,” said Hillery, an eighth grade American History teacher at Petrides, who has been showing Pena the ropes this season. “We can’t do batting practice because of it. We’re worried about having enough balls to get us through the week.”

Hillery and D’Alessandro remember someone from the PSAL coming to look at the field, “but that was years ago, and we never heard anything after that,” said D’Alessandro, who also pointed out that Petrides’ football and lacrosse teams use the field for practices after baseball season has ended – further tearing up the surface.

The problem isn’t new. En route to winning the PSAL AA city championship at Yankee Stadium, poor conditions forced the Panthers had to play a first-round home playoff game against Port Richmond away from Petrides.

Unfortunately, it appears the Panthers will have to be the Road Warriors again in 2024.