03/17/2026
MERAMEC TRANSFORMED, FIELDS LEFT OUT
Over the past three years, STLCC has seen many updates to its Meramec campus. Aside from buildings, the sports fields haven’t been much of a priority to the STLCC Transformed project.
Meramec’s campus has three outdoor fields: soccer, baseball and softball, and these fields have been through a lot.
“For what it is, it’s in good shape. The playing surface is good. We spend a lot of time on it. We do a lot of the day-to-day work on it; our grounds crew does a great job of prepping the field for us when we play,” said Head Baseball Coach Scott Goodrich.
The fields are always in use, so many don’t notice the negatives. Soccer player Joao Victor Gonzaga Ribeiro expressed his opinion on the current soccer field conditions.
“The field is not the worst I’ve seen, but it can be better. I don’t know if the drain is too good. Sometimes the field can be too wet, and the grass is too high. In some places, it’s high, and [in] others it’s good,” Gonzaga Ribeiro said.
With the new updates on campus, the fields are now in need of improvements according to Goodrich.
“Well, I mean, if you look around the landscape of college athletics right now, when you talk about fielding improvements at the baseball level, you’re really looking at turf fields, and I think a turf facility for us would really change the way we’re able to do things,” Goodrich said. “We’d be a lot more efficient in the things we’re able to do during practice. It would allow us to play more home games; it would add a dimension of a modern look on the campus as well.”
With weather in the Midwest, rain and snow makes it hard for players to get outside on their fields to practice, and this is a struggle when it comes to major games.
Read more at meramecmontage.com.
