Cape Henlopen defeats Sussex Academy in girls lacrosse
Cape Henlopen had 10 players score in their seventh win of the season.
FREDERICA — About 10 minutes before their second game of the day at DE Turf, Emma Bozek tells her team of 15- and 16-year-old field hockey players to get ready for a high-energy warm-up.
This is a part of the day when coaches can sense a lull coming, so Bozek breaks the monotonous tapping of carbon-fiber sticks with a series of running chest bumps and high-fives.
Bozek’s Colorado Bears are one of two field hockey clubs in the state. Yesterday, they took a four-hour flight from Denver to Baltimore, then drove two hours to the Hyatt House in Rehoboth Beach. This morning, they drove another 30 minutes north on Route 1 before their tournament-opening 2 p.m. game and are now staring down a 5 p.m. start against a club of Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland kids that practice at the University of Delaware.
By this time, the parking lot of the Frederica Pizza & Pasta House, one of two restaurants in the neighboring two-stoplight town of Frederica, is filled with license plates from across the country. The Bears already placed an order that should be ready shortly after this game wraps. They’ll be back on the turf tomorrow at 9 a.m., playing the first of three games. Some players will end the day on a 9 p.m. Southwest flight to be in school the following morning.
Almost every spring and summer weekend, DE Turf, a collection of 12 artificial turf fields on the side of Route 1 south of Dover and north of Milford, draws thousands of athletes and their families for regional and national field hockey, lacrosse and soccer tournaments. It’s become a destination coveted by travel sports clubs and event organizers, desired for its centralized Mid-Atlantic location and rainout-proof turf fields.
The primary reason the tournaments exist is college recruitment. Players like those on the Colorado Bears want to be seen by college coaches. At large tournaments at DE Turf and facilities like it across the country, coaches can scout dozens of potential recruits in one stop and can see them tested against higher-level competition than provided by most high school games. The allure of a college scholarship is strong enough that parents absorb the travel costs.
Those dynamics are the basis of what is now well known as the “big business” of youth sports. Everyone from T-shirt printers to government officials wants a piece of the action.
Sports leagues and tournaments make use of athletics facilities across the state, from Kirkwood Sports’ 15-field complex near New Castle to the four-year-old Sandhill Fields in Georgetown. But few attract tournaments of the prestige and size of DE Turf.
“I think it’s almost a poster child,” said Bill Strickland, chairman of the board of directors of the nonprofit that operates DE Turf.
A decade ago, state and county officials began planning what would become DE Turf as a new economic driver in an otherwise quiet part of Kent County. By inviting the high school-to-college pipeline to run through the state, the group believed players and their families would spend big at hotels, restaurants and other businesses. The visitors would increase the amount of economic activity in the state, boost tax revenue and spur further development.
The state has since doubled down on its efforts to grow and attract youth sports tournaments and other sporting events. Last year, state legislators created a fund to support the creation of new facilities or upgrades at existing fields. The Tourism Office will have $12 million to allocate this year.
Many of the state’s sports facilities already benefit from taxpayer support. DE Turf operates on a $1-per-year lease. It has received more than $4 million in state grants and Kent County backed its construction with bonds worth close to $21 million. The investment was made with the belief the complex itself wouldn’t be a big money maker, but the downstream benefits — for the economy and local athletes — would make it a worthwhile investment.
The complex has delivered on its promise of attracting high-level tournaments. On a given spring or summer weekend there are now three times as many people traversing the fields of DE Turf than who live in Frederica. Teams fill hotel rooms from the beaches to Dover, and sometimes even further north. DE Turf has locked in multi-year contracts with many of its tournament hosts, making it likely things will stay this way.
But so far, the surroundings of DE Turf have yet to transform. The area is primed for development — the state built an interchange in 2018 at a cost of $18 million and several parcels have been rezoned — but the market has not yet deemed it a prudent investment.
“Several years ago, a master plan was done for the area,” said Kent County Planning Director Sarah Keifer. “But, a plan doesn’t make things happen, a plan lets things happen. The market makes things happen.”
Bozek, the Colorado coach, has taken her club to DE Turf each of the last three years. She spends most of her time in Delaware at the edge of turf fields and driving on Route 1. The tournament schedule doesn’t leave much time for exploration. She would like there to be more hotels and restaurants near the facility.
But Bozek expects to keep coming back. For a team of mostly transplant families, tournaments at DE Turf offer the opportunity for friends and family left behind on the East Coast to attend games. The level of competition is high.
And the turf plays well.
After their 3-0 dispensing of a team from Pottstown, Pennsylvania called X-Calibur, Loveita Moffett convenes her Delaware Sharks at the northeast corner of Field 4. As her daughter Bree takes the whiteboard — there’s a tweak to make before the next game — the team circles close together.
“It’s always windy here,” Moffett says.
DE Turf was built on the east side of Route 1 on land owned for several decades by Charles H. West Farms, a grower of sweet corn and lima beans. Until 2017, when DE Turf hosted its first major tournament, there wasn’t much to distinguish it from the rows of crops lining the drive on Route 1.
That first tournament was the Shooting Star Showdown field hockey tournament. It’s the same tournament that’s now unfolding in this first weekend in April, hosted by 3STEP Sports, a national youth sports event organizer based in Massachusetts. More than 150 teams from as far as Vancouver, British Columbia have gathered to play five games across Saturday and Sunday. Players range in age from 11 to 19.
A cacophony of whistles passes between the fields, heard over the low hum of the highway and the ticking of balls against sticks. Parents sling folding chairs over their shoulders and move station to station. Athletes sit on the turf and prop themselves against their equipment bags, taking in other action between games. The more creative zip themselves in sleeping bags and wrap their lawn chairs in plastic bubbles.
It is 51 degrees and the wind is gusting at 35 miles per hour.
“These places tend to be in the middle of nowhere,” said Sam Carlino, a former Bucknell, Princeton and Team USA field hockey coach who now runs 3STEP Sports’ field hockey operations.
There is a standard-fare snack bar and a Kona ice truck on the premises, but the tournament also attracts its own small village of pop-up vendors. More than a half dozen sellers are situated in a large tent near the entrance. Official tournament gear with each team’s name printed on the back is for sale (hoodies are $55, T-shirts are $25). There are also shops from field hockey-focused brands like Osaka and apparel companies like Girls Gotta Play.
Some shirts are geared towards parents with sayings like, “Sorry for what I said when my daughter was on the field.” The best sellers among athletes at Girls Gotta Play are the licensed college shirts. Delaware, Penn State, Syracuse and Florida are on display today, but North Carolina and its Tar Heel blue sells the most wherever they go, says Brianna Saffran.
“It’s about the brand,” Saffran said.
At the next tent, there are guys offering to video your kid. The packages start at $275. You’ll need the tape of their next goal for the college coaches who didn’t make it today. Tournament rules: these guys are the only ones allowed to record.
Moffett, a guidance counselor at Smyrna High and coach of their field hockey team, has been coming to DE Turf since the facility opened. It doesn’t have everything on her wish list — an indoor or bubbled field for the winter would be nice — but, as a 30-minute drive from her home, it’s hard to beat. Her Delaware Sharks will travel to Virginia and Florida this season for tournaments of similar caliber.
“The whole reason why we come to a tournament of this size is the hope that college coaches are sitting on the sideline scouting the players,” Moffett said.
Moffett has seen the recruiting process as both coach and parent. Her oldest daughter, Dru, will play at Michigan next fall. She committed to the Wolverines in September of her junior year. Bree, a sophomore, is in the middle of the gauntlet.
The process comes at considerable cost to parents, who pay to join the team, pay the entry fees to tournaments and cover their own travel expenses.
“These kids and their parents are so all-in financially,” Moffett said. “It’s ridiculous.”
The town of Frederica, on the banks of the Murderkill River and six miles from the Delaware Bay, was once a shipping center. Its ships took beef, corn and cheese to Philadelphia. By the mid 19th century, the railroad, built west of Frederica through Dover and Felton, led to a decline of the shipping business.
Canneries became prominent in the town until the early 20th century when changes to Route 113 cut Frederica off from the bay and the businesses closed. Today, the old town with around a dozen streets remains and there’s a 150-home neighborhood at the edge of the city limits to the southeast.
Pete Randazzo moved to Frederica in 1993 to open an 800-square-foot pizza shop on Market Street. His family immigrated to the U.S. from Sicily when he was 10. He worked with his older brothers at a Brooklyn pizza restaurant they started, then opened his own restaurants in Dover and Rehoboth Beach. He found Frederica appealing, a place to raise his family and build a year-round business at lower costs.
“The American dream to own a restaurant where you could work every day and make the food you want to eat,” he said. “It’s been good ever since. We always strive to make the best pizza and the best food out there.”
Randazzo moved the Frederica Pizza & Pasta House in 2004 to its current location on Frederica Road, a spot he expanded in 2014. After more than 25 years as a local institution, it began serving people from across the country every weekend.
The weekend crowds rankles some of Randazzo’s longtime customers, but many have learned to come in at off-hours. Randazzo had to make some changes to their operations to keep up, but now they know what to expect each Friday and Saturday. Frederica Pizza & Pasta House still stays closed on Sundays.
The restaurant is still the only one advertised on the sign for Frederica exit, but last year Randazzo got some company on Frederica Road when a seasonal beer garden and restaurant called Burgers & Brews opened. In August, a SpringHill Suites opened opposite DE Turf on Route 1, just outside city limits.
“There were a lot of businesses in this town and every generation dropped off,” Randazzo said. “That’s what happens in a lot of small towns like ours, but now I feel like there is a tide changing in our town.”
Michael Meoli fielded many questions when he started telling some of his business friends about the idea of building a hotel near Frederica. Meoli owns 25 McDonald’s throughout Delmarva and opened a successful Tru by Hilton hotel in Ocean City, Maryland, but the small town would be a different bet.
The crowds at DE Turf, where revenue has been up since the pandemic, could fill the hotel on weekends. The challenge would be finding business during the week and in the facility’s lean winter months.
Meoli’s hotel opened in August, the first piece of a planned development called Asbury Square that Meoli is partnered with John Paradee and Mike Koppenhaver to see through. He said he is satisfied with the early returns and encouraged by growing relationships with Dover Air Force Base, Nemours and Bayhealth.
“The turf is certainly the primary demand generator, but it’s not the only one,” Meoli said. “It certainly wouldn’t be sustainable with just that.”
Meoli expects the hotel to benefit from the other components of the Asbury Square project, too. Empire Wine & Spirits expects to open next month next door. Meoli’s team plans to develop two additional commercial pad sites. They will ask for a new approval at some point this year for a row of in-line retail, which has been preferred by prospective tenants as a lower-cost option.
“A lot of that commercial growth is somewhat dependent on the growth in the residential market in the area,” Meoli said. “I know there’s a number of folks that we’ve spoken to — whether it’s restaurant or retail — they certainly want to see some more rooftops coming. We’ve had a lot of activity as of late and I think the hotel has had a lot to do with that.”
Others are also hoping it’s a catalyst, but there hasn’t been much other movement so far.
The Meding family owns multiple parcels around their Meding Seafood market just south of DE Turf on Route 1. Three years ago, they studied the traffic impact of building a hotel, gas station and convenience store and retail space, but they have yet to take action. A year earlier, a developer named Steve Martin talked about building a water park and luxury cabins further south on Route 1. That property is currently listed for sale under the name “Turf Landing.”
In conversations with parents and event organizers, Strickland, the board chair, often hears that families want more amenities and things to do nearby. He said development in the Frederica area “lags a bit behind” what he expected when the facility opened. Strickland attributed it to the pandemic, a year in which the turf’s nonprofit lost $921,887.
The two years following for which tax filing data is available, DE Turf generated $4.4 million and $4.1 million in revenue and netted $1.7 million and $1.1 million.
“There’s a lot of risk involved in anything you do, but [DE Turf] is already here,” Randazzo said. “The risk in attracting the population is no longer here.”
The Hatfield family doesn’t always stay the night when they come from York, Pennsylvania to DE Turf, but Tennille Hatfield’s daughter Aubrie had a game at 8 p.m. Saturday and another at 8 a.m. Sunday. After passing on the high prices at the nearby SpringHill Suites, they decided to stay at a Red Roof Inn in Dover.
“If this was a complex that wasn’t worth it, I probably wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t pay the money for her to do the tournaments here,” Hatfield said. “We definitely need something else around here. Like one or five more [hotels].”
Brandon Holveck reports on high school sports for The News Journal. Contact him at bholveck@delawareonline.com.
