The complex has 13 game fields for youth football and soccer, among other sports. Games should have started Wednesday night.

"We practice year round. In the summer, winter, spring, all the time," Samantha Tapia, 14, said.

She plays for the El Paso Heat U15 soccer team on the west side.

"All summer waiting for fall season to start," she said.

Her dad, Patrick Tapia, coaches her team. He also said he and the team look forward to fall season.

But for the Heat and hundreds of other youth soccer and football teams, fall season will have to wait a couple of weeks more.

Sunday at about 11:30 p.m., someone or some people broke into the power box at the complex, cut the cables and took off with 12 6-ft-long pieces of copper wiring.

The complex lost "lights and the irrigation system, concession stands, restrooms," Parks and Recreation sports manager, Paula Powell, said.

"This was the first week we could utilize the entire complex, and now we can't," Powell said.

Powell has to inform the Heat team and hundreds of others that because the fields aren't lit, youth soccer and football games planned for the complex will be postponed until the complex gets its lights back in a couple of weeks.

She said close to 500 games will be rescheduled, likely for the end of the season, and that more than 5,00 players will be affected.

"All that hard work to get ready for our first game, and having to wait again?" Samantha Tapia asked.

Her team is disappointed. So is the city, who has to pay $10,000 to replace the cut cables, taken out of their general fund.

If you have any information about this crime, call the El Paso police department at 915-834-3200.