New England Regional Turfgrass Foundation


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Press Releases

2012 NERTF Turf Bowl

Teams from UMass, UConn, URI and SUNY Cobleskill came to Providence to compete in the 4th Annual Turf Bowl. Congratulations goes to UMass Team (Royal Healy, John Waters, Maxwell Griggs) who won the event. A close second place went to a Cobleskill Team (David Allen Vastola, Stanley Zombek, Sean Charles). Third Place went to UConn Team (Anthony Minniti and Ray Platt). Shown in the picture looking sharp and enjoying the conference reception are the students from UConn.


2011 NERTF Turf Bowl

UMass prevails for the third straight year to take top honors in the 2011 New England Regional Turf Bowl. Professor Michelle DaCosta and students enjoyed victory again at this year's event. Many of the teams from UMass did very well against teams from URI, UConn, and SUNY Cobleskill.


2010 NERTF Turf Bowl

The 2nd Annual Turf Bowl competition was held at the 13th annual conference and show in Providence on March 3, 2010. Professors from the Universities of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island provided test questions, plant samples for identification, pictures of infected turf, and insect displays to test the abilities of the students to recognize the challenges that managing turf might have. Teams of three were organized within each school and the students were eager to get to work. This year’s competition was dominated by the University of Massachusetts. The top three teams were:

1st Place-UMass Team #4
Lisa Golden, Tim Kaija, Eric Cronin (pictured)

2nd Place-UMass Team #3
Mike McCormick, Noah Goldstein, Chip Fitzgerald

3rd Place-UMass Team #7
Alex Brooks, Shawn Wynn, Scott Pierre


2009 NERTF Turf Bowl

The first annual New England Regional Turf Bowl was held March 4, 2009 during the New England Regional Turfgrass Conference and Show in Providence, RI. Sponsored by the NERTF, Inc. Students from URI, UConn, and UMass competed in teams of 3 in an educational hands-on competition to identify weeds, diseases, insects, plant material. Written tests, potted weeds, bottled insects, displayed seed and pictured diseases provided by university educators were analyzed, discussed, identified and recorded by each 3-person team for scoring.

Proctored by turfgrass educators and NERTF Immediate Past-President and Turf Bowl Organizer Robert Ruszala from Hickory Ridge Country Club. Students had more than 1 hour to complete the 60 test questions and 25 identification samples before entering their answer sheets. The first place teams received champion plaques and their names will be added to the NERTF Turf Bowl Champions Plaque to be displayed in the NERTF office and added to each year. Each participating school also received a donation to the school’s turf club.

Congratulations to all competitors! The following are the top three teams:

1st Place-Team #2 UMass

Shawn Wynn
Scott St. Pierre
Alex Brooks
2nd Place-Team #3 UMass

Noah Goldstein
Robert “Chip” Fitzgerald
John Viscariello

3rd Place-Team #5 UMass

Eddie Coffin
Steve Copeland
Will Crosby