GREENSBORO, NC - The UNCG softball team has been in a temporary, borrowed home for over a year.
Now, the team is about to move into a palace.
The construction crews are putting the finishing touches on the brand new $3 million UNCG Softball Complex.
The complex, located on the site of the old UNCG Softball Field, is nearing completion and will be ready for the Spartans to move into in the near future.
Since last fall, the Spartans have been borrowing Greensboro College's field located on the opposite side of Lee Street from the UNCG campus. The facility, which sits next to the Boys & Girls Club, has served as a temporary home for games and practices during the construction, which began a little over a year ago.
"The new stadium and surrounding facility not only compliment our other excellent venues, but most importantly provide the softball team with an outstanding home field," said UNCG Director of Athletics Nelson E. Bobb. "They are even more exciting than I had hoped."
The complex includes a stadium with 500 permanent seats, a press box, a concession area behind home plate, spacious restroom facilities, a grounds storage building and an indoor hitting facility.
The indoor hitting facility is more than 1000 square feet in size. It contains two 12x70 batting cages that will be utilized by the UNCG baseball and softball teams. It is air conditioned and heated, allowing the teams year-round usage.
The press box, located atop the seating behind home plate, is 360 square feet. It contains two broadcast booths and a main working media area designed to seat 10-12 people. It is also heated and air conditioned and has phone, ethernet and cable television facilities.
The field itself is a Tiff Sport Bermuda Grass with a 90% profile and sand field. The outfield is surrounded by a 10-foot high wall and is 200 feet down the lines and 210 feet to straight away center field. There is a 10-foot red stone warning track surrounding all sides of the field.
The scoreboard is 15 x 28 and sits above the fence in right-center field. It has an inning-by-inning scoreboard display, LED message board and is controlled by a wireless system.
The seating structure is also ADA accessible by ramps down both the left and right field foul lines. There is also a ticketing facility in the right field corner.
The field is also lighted for night games. A Musco design, there are six light poles in the configuration providing 70 footcandles of illumination in the infield and 50 footcandles of lighting in the outfield.
The dugouts are just as impressive. Totalling over 700 square feet each, they too are ADA accessible and include bat storage racks, restrooms and drinking fountains and have direct access to the bullpen areas in the left and right field corners.
The bullpens are fully enclosed and contain two full-use pitching areas. No longer will teams need to enter the field of play to go to the warm-up venues.
"I am absolutely thrilled about the unveiling of the brand new Spartan Softball stadium," said UNCG's first-year softball coach Jennifer Herzig. "This stadium has been a long-time in the making, and I cannot express my gratitude enough to Nelson Bobb and the rest of the UNCG administration for their commitment to this project. The final piece of the puzzle is now in place for us to continue recruiting quality student-athletes to UNC Greensboro who will help us in our quest of winning the Southern Conference championship."
UNCG is slated to play its first contest in the new facility on Feb. 11 when it plays host to Radford beginning at 1 pm.
- UNCG -