Rentschler, CCSU’s Arute Field to host CIAC football championships
The CIAC will be returning to Rentschler Field and Central Connecticut State for its annual football championships as it begins another era of six playoff divisions, the organization announced Wednesday.
Three games will be played at each site at 10:30 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on December 10, the day of the state finals. Locations for each division will be announced after the two finalists are determined.
The decision marks the CIAC’s return to the two college sites for the first time in nearly a decade.
The finals were played at Rentscher Field between 2010-2012, when the CIAC previously contracted to four championship divisions.
In 2013, the four finals were moved to Arute Field in New Britain. Class S’s final was completed on Friday night, but a Saturday snowstorm knocked the Class L and LL finals to other sites (and, in LL’s case, a different date) while St. Joseph’s afternoon Class M victory over Brookfield was completed in a near blizzard.
The CIAC has used high school campus sites since. For the past two seasons (not including 2020), CIAC finals have been played at Trumbull’s McDougall Stadium and Veterans Stadium
in New Britain. Other sites like Shelton, Stamford’s Boyle Stadium (typically for strictly FCIAC matchups) and — until its renovation began — Ken Strong Stadium in West Haven were also used.
This season marks the first time that the CIAC will hold six championship games since 2002-2009. In 2014, it briefly played eight finals as it sought to drastically reduce games and contact to fall in line with medical recommendations. It returned to four finalists in 2015.
The move back to big venues for championship games has been a priority for CIAC executive director Glenn Lungarini, following the basketball championships at Mohegan Sun, Quinnipiac University for hockey and the renovated Trinity Health Stadium (formerly Dillon Stadium) for soccer.
“CIAC has made an effort to extend the college and career goals of its member schools by providing student-athletes with an opportunity to experience playing at Connecticut’s
best collegiate and professional stadiums,” Lungarini said in a statement.
“Partnering with Pratt & Whitney Stadium and CCSU is a natural extension of education-based interscholastic athletics. It will be a thrill for CIAC student-athletes to compete at Rentschler Field and Arute Field, where their collegiate role models from UConn and CCSU play.”