La Roche College soccer team captain Bryan Weimerskirch doesn't miss the way the soccer field used to look, or the work it took to make it usable.
“We had to go out there and vacuum the holes to get the water out so we could play soccer,” Weimerskirch, 21, said of the formerly grassy field.
There weren't structures on the field, except for bleachers, before spring.
With the completion of a $2.7 million renovation of La Roche's athletic complex, some sports teams will play on artificial turf. Restrooms replaced portable toilets, said Colleen Ruefle, vice president for student life and dean of students at the McCandless college.
A pavilion with concession stands replaces makeshift vending of refreshments on tables, she said. The renovated area has a press box and large electronic scoreboard. Crews added parking and landscaping.
“It's beautiful, compared to what we had,” said Weimerskirch, a La Roche senior.
The athletic complex provides a better playing environment for men's and women's soccer teams, men's lacrosse and, starting in 2015, women's lacrosse teams, Ruefle said. And it will help La Roche with recruiting, she said.
“Most high school teams now play on artificial turf, and to be able to keep up with the market and recruit the type of athletes that we want to have here, we needed to be competitive with what other high schools and colleges have,” she said.
La Roche offers 12 varsity sports. Teams compete in Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference in NCAA Division III.
The complex will benefit other groups, such as the baseball team when it needs a practice area in winter; intramural flag football and soccer players; and outside organizations that want to rent the space. Vincentian Academy will play a Sept. 13 soccer game there, but won't pay a fee because the schools partner sometimes, La Roche spokesman Brady Butler said.
La Roche's men's soccer team started in 1990, when the grassy field opened. The women's soccer team started in 1996.
Some members of the 1990 men's team will be present at a Saturday ceremony for the complex.
“It will be just a celebration of La Roche and the continued improvements that we've been able to make,” Ruefle said.
Donations paid for improvements at the complex, mostly from a donor who will remain anonymous until later, she said. Other major donors were S&T Bank and La Roche trustee Nicholas Varischetti.
Founded in 1963 by Sisters of Divine Providence as an independent, private, Catholic college for religious sisters, La Roche admitted its first lay students and conferred degrees on its first five graduates by 1965. About 1,400 students are enrolled now, Ruefle said.
Tory N. Parrish is a Trib Total Media staff writer. Reach her at 412-380-5662 or tparrish@tribweb.com.
