Sacred Heart will host CIAC lacrosse finals

The CIAC announced Thursday morning that Sacred Heart University’s Campus Field will host both its boys and girls lacrosse finals.

The girls championship games will be Saturday, June 11, at 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m.

The boys will play on Sunday, June 12, at 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m.

“Any time we have an opportunity to bring all our championships to one destination, it certainly piques our interest,” CIAC executive director Glenn Lungarini said. “Any time we can expose kids to a college facility, that’s always a plus.”

Charlie Dowd, Sacred Heart’s deputy athletic director for external affairs, said he would like this to be a long-term relationship.

“We’ve established a pretty good relationship with the CIAC to begin with,” Dowd said. “Certainly one of the things we like is people coming on campus and seeing what’s happening here. It’s an opportunity to bring in outstanding lacrosse teams and family from all over Connecticut.”

Lungarini said Dowd and the college are easy to work with.

“It’s a beautiful facility,” Lungarini said. “Having the great facility is one part, but having great people in that facility makes the experience so special for the kids.”

Lungarini said there’s a

similar experience at other championship sites, including Mohegan Sun, where the CIAC plays its basketball finals over two days. There, they play several boys games and several girls games each day. The CIAC won’t stagger the lacrosse games like that next month.

“A big deciding factor for the committees was that the semifinals are Tuesday for the girls and Wednesday for the boys,” said Dan Scavone, assistant director of the CIAC and its liaison to the boys and girls lacrosse committees. “They wanted to keep that rest interval consistent. They decided to do the girls Saturday and the boys Sunday this year.”

Sacred Heart also plays host to the FCIAC softball semifinals and championship game. CIAC representatives have also visited during the construction process of SHU’s hockey facility.

The CIAC in recent years had typically played the boys and girls finals on the same Saturday, with the girls at one site and the boys at another. For the girls, that was usually Bunnell since 2010 with a 2016-19 detour to Law.

Before the 2021 boys finals went to Trumbull’s McDougall Stadium, they had similarly been a threegame affair at McMahon going back to 2007, and the school’s Casagrande Field hosted other finals before that as well.