MURRAY, Ky. — Murray State Athletics announced a flurry of improvements coming to Johnny Reagan Field, highlighted by a brand new baseball clubhouse, at a groundbreaking ceremony Friday morning.

The clubhouse, which will be named the Jim & Sue Cash Baseball Clubhouse, will feature a new locker room, player lounge, team meeting room, training room, pitching lab, bullpen, and an outdoor hitting facility. It’s expected to open by the start of the 2027 season.

“This clubhouse is a massive commitment to our players, our alumni, and the future of Racer Baseball and will give our student-athletes every opportunity to grow, develop, and prepare at the highest level,” head baseball coach Dan Skirka said in a statement. “Our new home is something we have dreamed about for a long time, and we are incredibly fortunate that that dream has now come true.”

It marks the latest in a series of improvements coming to Johnny Reagan Field. In the video above, you can see strips of grass dug up due to a new drainage system being installed. A new scoreboard and a new outfield wall are also already in place. A new videoboard will be installed behind the right-center field wall ahead of the upcoming season. The playing surface will also be replaced with new turf.

“Everything we do, we focus on recruiting and revenue generation here, and for us to continue to showcase a facility when we’re done with all of the elevations, whether it be the new video board, which will be the largest in the conference and one of the largest in the nation, to new branding elements, to the new turf that’s going in, to ultimately elevating the fan profile pieces in the clubhouse, we’re committed to showcasing that this can be a premier program nationally,” Director of Athletics Nico Yantko said.

Yantko added in a statement that the goal with these improvements is not only to capitalize on the school’s run to the College World Series in 2025, which ultimately led to Skirka agreeing to a contract extension following reports of him being a finalist for the Duke opening, but also to push Murray State even further into the national spotlight.

“There’s two types of categories in this new reality: There’s players and there’s participants, and we fully intend to be players in this new space,” Yantko said. “We’re excited about where we’re at. The momentum, it’s contagious, right? The energy is contagious, and we’re going to continue to lean forward in this new space.”

The clubhouse marks the latest in another major project for Murray State Athletics over the next few years. When it’s all said and done, Yantko has a greater vision for the area.

“On March 9, you’ll have the demo begin for the CFSB Center renovation, which will be the largest athletics project in school history, you’ll have this clubhouse… We’re continuing to evaluate our entire entertainment area,” Yantko said. “We call this the entertainment village, ‘Racer Entertainment Village,’ and we’re going to continue to lean forward into that space. But there’s monumental movement ahead, and we’ve done a lot of incremental work, but as we say, incremental will be monumental… 

“The success and the very visible aspects of our sports park are going to be coming very, very clear here soon as we continue to lean into the entertainment value. I mean, the fact that we get to host the Missouri Valley Conference championship here, that’s going to have a massive economic impact to the community and region.”

Murray State baseball will host the 2026 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament from May 20-23.