HAMPDEN/WILBRAHAM – The first thing you notice is the bounce. Grass just doesn’t bounce like turf.

Falcon Field at Minnechaug Regional High School underwent a transformation this summer. The grass field was torn up and, in its place, a new turf field was installed.

“One of the things I love about [the field], it’s been embraced by the kids,” said Glen Garvey, a volunteer with the Minnechaug Regional High School (MRHS) Booster Club, who ran the project. “They can’t keep the boys and girls off of it.”

Turf is a nylon material designed to look like grass without the upkeep of a natural field.

The new Falcon Field, one of nine sports fields on the campus, is lined for and accommodates soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, and football. The field will be used for every varsity game and 90 percent of the junior varsity games for those sports. The field hockey and soccer teams, which played on a different field before, can now take advantage of the lights to play night games.

“We want it to be a universal experience,” Garvey said.

Some of the other 25 sports offered at Minnechaug, such as baseball and softball, can utilize the field if their regular fields were in use, the boosters said. Ron DeCurzio, MRHS Booster Club president, said playing “small ball” sports, such as baseball, indoors can distort depth perception since there is a wall behind the person throwing the ball, so the use of the field will eliminate that handicap. It gives the school band a place to practice, as well.

The Wilbraham Parks and Recreation Department will also have access to the field.

“It was always the intent to have a community field, rather than a high school field,” said Garvey.

DeCurzio said he brought up the idea of a turfed field about nine years ago, but the idea started taking off in November 2017. The first request for proposal (RFP) was rejected due to cost, so a second RFP was submitted with a savings of $300,000.

The final price tag for the project was $800,000. Funding for the project came from a mixture of $270,000 in community preservation funds and private donations through a “Turf at Chaug”  fundraising campaign.

While the vendors have been paid in full, the fundraising isn’t finished. The booster club has collected $550,000, so far, but MRHS Booster Club volunteer Sean Murphy expects that total to be “much higher” after the first week of September.

“Large-scale donors will be back from vacation,” Murphy said. Generally, he said, people donate to school projects during the school year.

Construction on the field began in May. It broadly consisted of tearing up the grass field, layering several sizes of stone as drainage, and then laying the turf.

The final step was to add a fill made of sand and pelletized rubber to even out the field and provide the bounce. By the start of the 2019-2020 school year, the field was done and ready for use.

 Murphy said his kids will both get to use the new field.

“This surface helps to ensure that it’ll be a good experience,” Murphy said.

“The girls’ practice has been so much more upbeat,” said Minnechaug’s girls’ varsity field hockey coach, Eileen Jenkins. Senior Grace Crochiere said that the new field makes a “really big difference when playing field hockey. She said the flat, smooth  surface allows the ball to move faster and more consistently.

“It’s a really big improvement for the school,” Crochiere said.

DeCurzio described all of the benefits of the new field. He said a turf field has very few rainouts because there is no mud, the surface can be played on using turf shoes or the same molded cleats that were used on the grass field,  and turf is easier to fall on since it provides some cushion and there are no rocks.

DeCurzio said the school will save money on renting indoor fields to practice on when it snows since the school purchased a machine to plow the field as part of the turf package from Astroturf. Also included in that package was maintenance equipment to redistribute the fill if the field becomes uneven.

DeCurzio explained that money will be saved on maintenance since lines don’t have to be repainted every year, they are a part of the turf. The only downside is that turf gets hot in the sun and will have to be hosed down prior to summer games.

The number one factor for Decurzio is that “when you go to college, no one plays on grass anymore.” He said that having students be able to practice on the same surface as colleges provides a better chance of getting a scholarship.

“You really don’t want a kid to miss out on an opportunity,” due to subpar facilities, DeCurzio said. That opportunity is particularly important to DeCurzio, who said he wasn’t the strongest student but was able to attend college on a sports scholarship.

“If it gets one kid a college scholarship,” DeCurzio said, it will be worth it to him.

The field’s inaugural game was played on Sept. 3. An official dedication will be conducted at halftime during the Sept. 13 Falcons boys varsity football game against the Longmeadow Lancers.