Five Greenville teenagers were arrested Friday night after they broke into Tiger Stadium and drove a vehicle across the football field cutting ruts into the turf.

Authorities found the three boys and two girls, all Greenville High School students, on the field at approximately midnight.

According to Greenville Police Chief Lonzo Ingram, the driver of the vehicle has been charged with driving under the influence and criminal mischief, second degree, while the four passengers have been charged with minor in possession of alcohol. Due to their ages, the names of the offenders are not being released.

Ingram said the offenders will be responsible for the cost of the damages.

“At this point we don’t know how much damage was done,” he said. “I think it’s pretty bad. We’ll have the (ground) crew come in and determine the costs, and the juveniles will be responsible for whatever it takes to repair the field.”

Greenville Mayor Dexter McLendon said the city plans to recoup the cost of paying city employees overtime to repair the damage.

“We’re going to get all of our money back,” he said. “We’re going to get the costs of manpower, overtime and whatever else we have to pay to get this fixed. We expect to be reimbursed by the offenders.”

Milton Luckie, director of the Public Works Department, said his crew will need to cut and roll the field and possibly add sand in order to eliminate the ruts that were cut into the field by the vehicle.

Luckie called a crew in Saturday morning to begin work on the field. He said he believes the field will be ready for Greenville High School’s home opener next Friday night.

“I expect that they will be able to play on it,” he said. “It may be a little patchy, but I think we’ll be able to have it ready.”

The Tigers were scheduled to play a jamboree with Carver High School and Hillcrest-Evergren High School at Tiger Stadium Friday night, but were forced to move the game to Georgiana School’s Harmon Field after the spots on the field at Tiger Stadium were deemed to wet to play on. Those spots were the very spots that the teenagers drove across, cutting ruts several inches deep in the turf.