Photos by Hillary Ehlen and Joe Kerlin
The 87,400 square foot sports bubble appeared for the first time over Dacotah Field in November 2014. It instantly changed the game for NDSU Athletics. The football team had a climate-controlled area to practice in if the Fargodome was hosting a concert, the baseball and softball teams finally had the space to arrange a defense and the golf teams could actually watch the trajectory of their drives.
“It’s tough to scrimmage in the Bentson Bunker Fieldhouse. We’ve been able to do that (here). … We did a scrimmage on Friday and I was thinking afterward…we covered some things on Friday that we usually cover after maybe the first or second weekend, so a lot of it is different approaches at-bat, how you’re getting pitched, how you’re looking at things and how we share with our team.” — Darren Mueller, Softball Head Coach
“Just the amount of space is the No. 1 thing; space for our pitchers to have a long-toss program that’s appropriate. They have plenty of room to throw and get their arm stretched out.” — Tod Brown, Baseball Head Coach
Don’t Cha Know?
3 – The soccer team has scheduled games on three dates in Fargo this spring. They will host a 7v7 tournament March 3 and two round-robin tournaments April 14 and 22.
Anatomy
Opened – 2015
Square Feet – 87,400
Cost – $1.5 million
Team – Soccer, Baseball, Softball, Football, Golf, Track & Field
Features
- Climate-controlled
- 1,000-watt LED output from more than 100 light fixtures
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