The recent Dixie Softball Debs State Tournament was a success for its Kenbridge host in many ways, but there was a thread of disappointment included.

Lunenburg Girls Softball (LGS), which hosted the event at Bolter Fields, suffered a break-in and two instances of missing items during the course of the seven-day tourney.

The first instance of missing items came on July 16.

“We were selling programs that have all the kids’ pictures and ads for our people who supported us,” LGS Commissioner Tony Matthews said. At the end of the day, “we went to total everything up, and looked in the bag, and the bag was still there, but the money was gone.”

Missing was “$100 worth of the start-up change we had in there, and then probably an additional $150 of what we had sold those programs (for),” Matthews said.

Consequently, LGS lost 100 percent of its profit from the program money, and the programs themselves had cost over $196 to make.

“So, that’s a straight $200 loss, not counting the profit we would have made off of the programs,” Matthews said.

The second instance of missing items came between game action July 19 and 20.

On July 20, Matthews and others helping run the tournament discovered evidence of a break-in to its building that houses the concession stand and the press box.

“We could see evidence on the door where someone had used either a knife or screwdriver or some kind of sharp tool (to) jimmy the lock and got in there,” Matthews said. “They also got in the lock and did more damage to the door that goes upstairs to our press box, but thankfully nothing up there was missing.”

But from the concession stand, 12 to 15 cases of Gatorade were missing, “and it was probably five or six cases of regular soft drinks that were missing,” Matthews said.

He said there is not a lot that can be done to figure out who was responsible.

“The police came; they did a report,” Matthews said. “Obviously, we’re going to take further measures. We’ve added some new deadbolts and stuff to the doors, and we’ll be taking other measures to try and guard against it in the future. The sad thing is this is a brand new concession stand that is not even completed yet, and that’s the reason we’re hosting the tournament is try to complete the thing.”

The missing money and profits from the tournament cuts into the funds LGS has to make loan payments on the building.

“It’s a pretty sad affair when someone will do that, basically to the children, because that’s what we use all this money for is to try to build up the youth in this community and obviously from other communities now that we have and host tournaments,” Matthew said. “We’ve had a little bit of a setback here, but we’re here for the kids, and we’re here for them to play ball, so we’ll just keep on going.”