BELCHERTOWN — There won’t be any blades of glory at Belchertown High School’s home stadium for the fall sports season.
The school’s athletic field will be closed for at least half the year — and possibly the entire 2026-2027 school year — while a new well and irrigation system is installed. Water for the field has been shut off as part of a town’s outdoor water ban, which halted irrigation and new grass growth in time for home games.
“The field is in rough shape right now. It’s not safe,” Belchertown High School Principal Christine Vigneux said at the June 23 School Committee meeting.
After applying herbicides to kill any lingering weeds, bare patches of dirt dot the stadium turf. Vigneux and Superintendent Brian Cameron said they are concerned athletes will get hurt playing on the surface.
“I’m anticipating some sports teams and their families being upset,” School Committee member Jake Hulsberg said. “They don’t get their home game. They don’t get their game under the lights.”
Belchertown Athletic Director Kevin McNeill must schedule nearly 30 home games this summer for the upcoming sports season. Director of Buildings Eric Lebeau said the town is currently weighing its options for alternative locations.
Field hockey and soccer teams might be able to use Cronk Field next to Chestnut Hill Community School, while football games may be played at Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School in Palmer.
But the School Committee expressed concern over additional transportation costs to and from these fields.
“We’re going to have to cut corners to make sure this happens,” Cameron said.
Renovations to the athletic field include construction of two new wells and complete resodding of the field. But when the wells were tested, crews discovered they could not produce enough water to irrigate the field. Lebeau said. Together, the two wells can pump about 15 gallons per minute, far short of the roughly 120 gallons per minute needed to irrigate the field.
As a result, the district has gone back to change its Community Preservation Committee grant application to add two water tanks for better water access, Lebeau said. Each water tank will be about 20 feet wide and 12 feet tall, and capable of holding 35,000 to 40,000 gallons of water.
Town Meeting approved the $246,000 Community Preservation Committee grant in 2025.
Select Board Jonathan Ritter asked whether the field could be ready for the fall season if the water were turned back on tomorrow. Lebeau said it could be made playable, but doing so would mean scrapping the planned turf renovations.
“If we’re going to invest the money to reinvigorate the field, shouldn’t we do it right?” School Committee Vice Chair Ruby Bansal said.
