Alexis Fuscaldo ‘22
EA is known for its gorgeous fields and exceptional athletic facilities. The grass on our campus green is always cut to perfection and captures the eye of anyone who passes by. Brendan Schlitt ‘24 comments, “There hasn’t been a day that I have not seen the EA’s grounds crew laying down fertilizer, mowing the lawn, or taking care of the athletic fields.”
When the grounds crew arrived back on campus late this summer, however, they found that the boys’ and girls’ varsity soccer fields were ruined. EA Athletic Director, Todd Fairlie explained that, “There had been a fungus in the field’s irrigation system that caused the grass fields to die. The fungus was located in the water of the pond by the baseball fields resulting from some chemicals that were used to treat the pond.” The boys’ field was worse off than the girls’ field and so, logically, that one was tackled first. Fairlie commented that, “Equity is an important thing to keep in mind during this process.” He also added that the girls’ field will be resurfaced in the future. This process of replacing the grass on the fields will likely continue on throughout the spring, with the possibility of continuing into next fall.
To deal with the problem, throughout pre-season, both teams were shuffled around daily from field to field trying to find space to practice. Head Coach of Girls Varsity Soccer, Andrew Fraggos said, “It happened, it was unfortunate, but I think that a year after dealing with Covid and juggling so many new things every single week, we had to quickly adjust. We still had H field to play on and the boys took A on the far side. We used the turf field which was nice and the football team helped us out with that during pre-season a bit.”
The boys’ field is the only one that has been completely re-done, and because of the new sod the players on both teams have had to adjust to the new feel of the ground. The grounds crew and administration decided to lay down Bermuda grass, which is incredibly rare to have on a soccer field around here. David Knox, Head Coach of Boys Varsity Soccer, shares that, “Our field and the Lincoln Financial Field where the Eagles play are the only Bermuda grass fields in the area.” The girls soccer team was the first one to try it out. Fraggos recalls, “It felt a little soft [at first], but it is already getting better. It’s brand new sod so the grounds crew have to do a lot to get it to where it was.”
Co-captain of the Varsity Boys Soccer Team, Tristan Whitaker ‘22 comments, “The field is awesome. It’s the nicest grass for a soccer field and pretty much anywhere else.” Co-Captain of the Varsity Girls Soccer Team Kendal Elison ‘22 adds, “There’s a lot of sand underneath of it, and it’s better than it was when they first did it. We’re very grass privileged so going to play on that just felt very different.” Kennedy Moore ‘22, player on the Girl’s Varsity Soccer Team, agrees saying, “It felt like you were running on the beach, in the sand, or on a trampoline.”
Moore, who is clearly happy with how the fungus problem is being resolved, comments, “I saw the boys field before they ripped it up and it was just brown, it didn’t even look like grass.” She goes on to say, “The girls field had patches of brown and so that’s why they decided to do the boys’ field first.” “Although the resurfacing of the fields caused some issues for pre-season, Knox says, “Honestly I did not think there could be a better surface than the one we already had. Our field was known to be the best soccer field in the area, if not the whole state.”