Santa Rosa prepares for three football games on its own field

Santa Rosa's campus football field has been expanded to legal size, has a new scoreboard and will host two night games next month.

Santa Rosa Academy’s football players might’ve gotten used to playing on the road in their first three games this season, but it’s a good bet the Rangers are looking forward to playing at home this weekend – and we mean really at home.

After using the Heritage High School field as their home field the last few years, the Rangers will begin using an improved on-campus field in Saturday’s 10 a.m. game against Temecula Prep. SRA will take a 2-1 record into the game, including last Saturday’s 53-7 win over St. Jeanne de Lestonnac Catholic School of Temecula.

School officials have been making improvements to the campus field for the last couple of years in preparation for CIF competition at home, said athletic director Dan Torres. The scoreboard was installed last year and the field has been lengthened to meet CIF 11-man football standards. The home side has a suitable number of permanent stands.

Torres said additional stands will be brought over from the baseball field for the visitors side of the football field. Plans call for the installation of lights next year, but in the interim, portable lights will be brought in for night games Oct. 2 against Capistrano Valley Christian (Homecoming) and Oct. 16 against Hamilton (Senior Night).

“Heritage High School has been great to us,” Torres said. “We made money off those games and were able to pack ‘em in. But now we can get even more students into the games at their own school."

Santa Rosa opened the season with a 36-26 victory at Desert Christian Academy but lost a 45-0 decision the next week at Valley Christian. The Rangers didn’t play a game the next two weeks because of COVID-19 protocol before getting back on the field last weekend with a big victory.