Saints christen baseball, softball fields
By Randy Whitehouse
Staff Writer

AUBURN – The crowd for Wednesday’s softball home-opener for St. Dom’s was late arriving. It wasn’t a matter of being bashful or fashionable.

It was a matter of being lost.

“Excuse me,” one man called to a passer-by as his car completed his second lap around the Auburn school’s parking lot. “Can you tell me where the softball field is?

Tucked away behind about 100 yards of trees, reached only by foot through a dirt path (look out for the poison oak), is where one will find the St. Dom’s softball team playing this year. The girls, and their counterparts on the baseball team, finally have a field of their own.

Both teams opened their new homes Wednesday, after about a year-and-a-half wait to make sure the fields were ready for the wear-and-tear of an eight-game home schedule. St. Dominic Regional High School now has a fully-functional athletic complex for spring sports, complete with a snack shack and rest rooms.

The layout is tiered, with the softball field at the top, a lacrosse field in the middle and the baseball field at the bottom. One could conceivably stand behind the outfield fence at the softball field and watch three games in three different sports at once.

The softball field is located to the left as you face the school, through “Gate 1” and down the previously mentioned dirt path. To get to the baseball field, take an immediate right at the campus’ east entrance to “Gate 2”, drive down the paved road (slowly, it’s a little curvy) and park in the dirt parking lot just before the field.

Both the softball and baseball fields have their own scoreboards, though neither was operating Wednesday. Both fields are rather spacious. The baseball field is 380 feet down the left field line, 390 to right, and 420 in the gaps. The softball field isn’t quite that big, but outfielders will have lots of ground to cover if a ball shoots the gap, particularly to right field and right-center.

“Nobody’s going to put it over those fences,” said Erika Schneid, a senior center fielder who saw Sacopee Valley’s Elyse White hit an inside-the-park home run Wednesday as the Saints lost their home-opener, 4-1. “The ball’s going to roll a long way”

It’s just a short relay throw from the school to the new fields. No more bus trips to Randall Road for the softball team, no more hopping in the car after school and driving to Drouin Field for the baseball team. The Saints are already enjoying the conveniences that many other schools with their own fields have always taken for granted.

It hasn’t yet translated into a home-field advantage, though. Like their opponents, the Saints are discovering the nuances of their new diamonds early in the season.

“It’s definitely different than Drouin,” said junior pitcher/first baseman Ryan Turgeon. “Drouin was rock solid in the infield. The first time I played on the new field, the infield was really soft. I’m not used to those shorter hops. I’m used to the big hops from all the rocks at Drouin.”

“Drouin wasn’t that bad of a field. I actually liked it,” Turgeon said. “But I think overall, we’re going to like it more here.”

The spring teams have had to wait the longest of all the St. Dom’s sports teams for their own on-campus venues. The sod needed time to root and the dirt infields needed time to settle. Once they got to set foot on them, though, it was a special feeling.

“When we got down there for our first practice, there was nothing like it because everybody was so pumped up,” said baseball coach Allan Turgeon, whose team christened its new field with an 8-4 win over Sacopee. “It was our own field, behind our own school. I think they picked up their level of play a little bit because they were so pumped.”

“It’s nice to have a home field to call our own and it’s nice that it’s right by our school and we have easy access to it,” said senior second baseman Julie Harper.

“But as far as the field goes…” Schneid piped in.

Some softball players were heard saying, “We want Randall,” after losing their first home game, but it had to do with the comfort, tradition and success the Saints had enjoyed playing at Randall Road rather than their dismay with the new field.

Not that they don’t have some complaints.

“The infield’s soft.” Harper said.

“They put the backstop on the wrong side,” added senior pitcher/outfielder Audrey Pleau. “The sun’s right in your eyes for a four o’clock game.”

Both outfields are dotted with brown patches without grass. Time and good groundskeeping will correct that. Home-field advantage, the Saints hope, will take less time to cultivate.

“It’s a huge field,” Allan Turgeon said. “For us, it should play for a little bit of an advantage because we’re going to be familiar with it. You have to keep the ball in front of you, or it’s going to roll a while. And we’re going to know that better, at least until our opponents have been here and played a few times.”

“It’s nice to have a nice open field so you can have fast guys to turn doubles into triples or home runs, and we have a lot of fast guys,” said Ryan Turgeon.

And everyone agrees the new complex will be more pleasant and more convenient for fans, especially those who want to keep an eye on both teams.

“It’s a nice setting,” Allan Turgeon said. “It’s a great area for people to sit back, relax, and get a great view of the ballgame.”