Local high school teams have made their plans to finish out the fall season without their home, while the city moves ahead with the funding process for Stellos Stadium's turf replacement. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The city high school fall sports teams are moving on from their disappointment of seeing their home field shut down for field safety reasons as their seasons hit the home stretch.

Meanwhile, the city is moving on with plans to address the situation of needing to replace the worn field turf that many, until late last spring, were expecting to be replaced over the summer.

The Board of Aldermen this past week initiated a propoal to apply $1.5 million for the turf replacement and other repairs needed for the facility. A public hearing on the proposal is slated for Monday, Oct. 28.

The change for the schools began with an electric atmosphere in a football game won in the final 12 seconds by Bishop Guertin at Nashua North’s grass field surrounded by its track a week ago as darkness was beginning to descend.

Guertin will have its home game this weekend vs. Keene in North Andover, Mass. at Merrimack College.

“For a Senior Night that’s fantastic,” Guertin coach Anthony Nalen said. “For those seniors, I’m sure they wanted to play it at Stellos. I think it means a lot more to the players than it does for the coaching staff. Definitely for those seniors, playing there for four straight years, they wanted a walk-off at Stellos.

“It was tough. Not so much in (the North game) but when you play another team, to be able to have that home field advantage. Now we’re gong to be on the road.”

Gueritn AD Ryan Brown said the game last night at Merrimack College is a one-time thing, and he’s secured Hollis Brookline High School’s stadium for the Cards final regular season home game next Saturday, Oct.19.

“Football is a little more up in the air,” Brown said. “We have to get a little more creative there and see what’s out there. … The concern with football is there are bigger crowds.”

North football coach Chad Zibolis said it wasn’t tough keeping his players focused on not having Stellos for the BG game.

“We were kind of excited with the way this (the field at North) came out,” Zibolis said. “It worked out for what we needed to do. It’s tough. It’s (Stellos) your home field. We’ve got one more game (scheduled) there, so it’s not the end of the world for us.”

That is now scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 26 vs. Merrimack at noon at Souhegan High School, which has helped the Nashua public schools a lot during this situation..

Nashua South football played at Winnacunnet, moving what was supposed to be a home game at Stellos to a road game. Their final home game has already been moved to Souhegan on Nov. 1 vs. Goffstown, giving the Panthers somewhat of a home field.

Panthers coach Scott Knight says his team has handled it well.

“I told them football’s a game of adversity anyway,” he said. “We’ve got snow sometimes, can’t get gym time sometimes, we’re used to this stuff. Moving forward, if we’re going to go dee p and make the playoffs and all that, we’re going to have some situations.

“We can play on grass. You can’t say we can’t play on grass, or a hostile environment.”

The players were OK, Knight said.

“They’re fine,” he said. “I told them we were going to play at Winnacunnet and they were ‘OK, that’s cool, we like it there.’ But I told them we’re not going to the beach after the game.”

That’s what the Panthers would always do with what has been an annual day scrimmage at the Warriors.

“I also told the kids we’ve got Souhegan, and the kids were like, ‘Yeah, we love it there.’,” Knight said. “It’s the same surface.’

“Whatever. We take it one day at a time.”

The other sports, soccer and field hockey, have adjusted. There are four soccer games, two boys and two girls, scheduled between Bishop Guertin and Nashua North and South this week. They were supposed to be doubleheaders two days apart but now at least two of the four games have been moved to the turf field at Presentation of Mary, which schools have used in the past for at least practices (South girls soccer played a tournament game there pre-pandemic).

The South-BG girls soccer game will be played on Tuesday at 4 p.m.; origninally it was slated for PMA but has since been moved to South’s soccer field, but as BG’s home game.

North and Bishop Guertin will play boys soccer Thursday at 4 p.m. — tentatively scheduled at North’s soccer field, located adjacent to the track field/mini stadium.

The North boys played Bedford in a big Divison I encounter at their own grass field Thursday of this past week.

“It was certainly disappointing to hear that we weren’t able to finish off there, especially with Senior Night,” North boys soccer coach Jeremy Zelanes said. “We have seniors who have played there the last couple of years there and they were hoping to finish off there. But overall, we practice on grass, we’re prepared to play on either one.”

Then next Saturday, Oct. 19 as of now will be a doubleheader at PMA, with the South boys vs. BG at 11 a.m., then the North girls vs. BG at 1 p.m.

Bishop Guertin had postponed a girls soccer game vs. Timberlane a week ago, and that has been rescheduled to Monday at 10 a.m.at Rivier University’s Merrill Field, where many of the school’s non-football games – especially field hockey – have been moved to. The BG field hockey team played a key game there vs. Dover this past week have their final regular season home game slated for Merrill Field next Wednesday at 3:45 p.m. There will likely be a home playoff game needed to be scheduled the following week.

Like the other teams, the Cards are taking it as it comes.

“We’re so thankful we have these community connections,” BG field hockey coach Dakota Bilodeau said. “Honestly it’s just more of a bummer for our seniors where they don’t get to have their Senior Night at Stellos where they played for four years.

“But I mean our message was big picture. Nobody’s hurt, We’re all still together, who cares what field we’re on as long as we’re still playing and playing together. Luckily (at Merrill Field) we’re still on turf … Not really a super game-changer, just a little bump in the road. (The players) did a good job just really not letting it be too much noise, and just focusing. They were OK, the seniors were bummed for a minute but then it was ‘Hey, we’re still playing, it’s not like our season’s over.’ These were all kids in middle school, COVID happened and they were done. So it’s like, it’s a field change.”

And as for their former field the signs were certainly there that an opportunity to avoid this was missed. The issue was sent to the schools Joint Special School Building Committee in July, and there it apparently sat.

Also, in regular scheduled testing, the signs were there. In a July 12 so-called G-Max test, performed by New England Turf Management, the field tested “near the limit of safe play.” However, the results also showed that certain locations on the field tested at a score “which is unsafe.”

An October 2 test done by Firefly Sports Testing proved to be its downfall, with at least four areas in the 200-plus G-max range (an impact test) and trouble along every seam. At least 10 spots were termed dangerous, as opposed to three or four in the earlier test. Privately, athletic officials, coaches, and players had the hope to get through the season and have the problem addressed in time forspring, but they fell a month short.

“We could all visually see, right, that the field was deteriorating and something needed to be done about it,” Brown said recently. “And, well, here we are.”

Brown is just hoping that the turf can be replaced before winter.

“My hope is that we’re not in this situation in the spring,” he said. “That’s got to be the goal at this point. What’s happened has happened, the goal now has got to be to make it usable for the spring.”