The St. John’s University lacrosse team won’t begin their 2017 campaign for another four months, but the excitement over a new addition to DaSilva Memorial Field already has the team and athletic personnel eager to begin the season.
In August, the St. John’s Athletic Department announced and broke ground on a new, state-of-the-art turf field for the Red Storm lacrosse team. LandTek, a New York-based and on-site general contractor specializing in sports facility design, completed installation of the field, designed by FieldTurf, in mid-August.
“We are excited about the renovation of DaSilva Memorial Field, and the installation of a brand new state-of-the-art FieldTurf surface,” Senior Associate Athletics Director John Diffley said in a statement to RedStormSports.com. “This project will result in a top-quality field that will greatly benefit our student-athletes for practice and competition.”
LandTek installed Multi40 turf, described as a turf system designed to provide performance where a separate underpad or shield is desired. The turf also features ballast layers of sand topped with layers of performance infill for “proven playability,” according to their website. The turf system also boasts material that promotes player safety and dimensionally stable backing to complement.
St. John’s opted to use the Ecosport infill system, which utilizes top grades of thermoplastic elastomer to deliver turf that offers safe performance, while also stimulating green and environment-friendly initiatives with extruded composite of recycled turf.
“Each pellet has built-in memory and rebounds back to its original shape after compression,” their website says. “This infill is resistant to UV degradation and delivers a durable and fully recyclable infill alternative for a wide variety of sport applications.”
The new FieldTurf surface will have both St. John’s and Big East conference logos and brandings. The new playing surface and its implementation did not interfere with the modernized six-lane track that was installed at DaSilva Memorial Field two years ago. DaSilva is just one of the several St. John’s University athletic facilities that will receive a facelift, a series of upgrades anticipated to be completed by the end of the summer.
Throughout the last decade, FieldTurf’s infilled artificial turf systems became the first to host two Super Bowls, the World Series, the World Baseball Classic, a Major League Soccer Cup Final and college bowl games on several regions of the country. Today, the company is known as the leader in synthetic sports fields, installing more than 7,000 in total. By choosing FieldTurf, schools and organizations at all levels around the country are bound to save money and perform at the very best value in both the short and long term.
Originally opened in 1978 as St. John’s Stadium, DaSilva Memorial Field was rededicated 20 years later in memory of school hockey star John DaSilva, who was tragically killed in a car accident. The field is now home to the men’s lacrosse team and women’s track and field teams, holding a total of 1,200 people, both of which will see competition on the newly-designed field beginning in early 2017.
