Southeast Missouri State’s intramural softball and soccer fields recently were upgraded to turf fields. After having one league already play on them, intramurals are getting great feedback from students.

Over the summer, intramurals replaced the grass and dirt fields with all new turf.

“The turf looks so much nicer,” coordinator of intramurals and club sports Kweku Arkorful said. “The grass wouldn’t really last as long as we wanted it to. When you start playing on it, it just starts to wear.”

With the brand new turf fields, students are now able to play on the fields whenever they want and not have to worry about getting run off the field.

“Originally I was against turf fields,” associate director of intramurals Eric Redinger said. “But looking at how many rainouts and postponements that lead to cancellations and shortened seasons. I had to be sold on getting the artificial turf, and after doing more research I realized how good it could be and how multiuse we could make it.”

Along with the turf looking better, the new surface has provided a season with zero rescheduled games.

“Us not having to reschedule has made a world of difference because games get to run smoother,” Arkorful said.

Southeast student Brendan Peterson said that he thinks the turf fields were a great addition. “Personally I really like them,” said Peterson. “It let us have no rain outs and all of the softball hops were true.”

The transition from softball to soccer has been a lot easier as well. Besides having to delay the start of the soccer season for students, once the softball league is over they are able to start up soccer earlier and share the fields if needed.

The turf fields have now let Facilities Management turn their focus more on the upper Bertling Field and the OVC softball field.

“They don’t have to worry about our lower turf fields now since our staff is doing the grooming, it gives them a lot more time to work on the OVC softball field and our upper Bertling fields,” Redinger said.

Intramurals want students to have a place that they can go to to relieve stress as they know that class work, a job, and other activities can put pressure on them.

“We are trying to give the students the best possible experience that they can get while they are here,” Redinger said. “We want to give them that outlet to play either recreational or league.”