Cranston West’s Jarred DiBiase carries the ball at Cranston Stadium, which, thanks to its FieldTurf surface, has become the state’s premier playing field.

The Journal / Gretchen Ertl

CRANSTON –– Their workday started in the pre-dawn darkness, 5:30 a.m. Sunday to be exact, when Chuck Shannon unlocked the gates to Cranston Stadium so a Cox Communications crew could begin setting up for a cablecast of the Division I Super Bowl football game at noon.

Then Shannon, a worker for the Parks and Recreation Department, cranked a gasoline-powered leaf blower and began clearing an inch or so of snow from the aluminum bleachers.

A little more than 16 hours later, Tony Liberatore, the director of parks and recreation, switched off the lights in the press box, ending the longest day in Rhode Island Interscholastic League football history. Three Super Bowl games had been played on the same field on the same day, a first for Rhode Island, and Cranston Stadium, thanks to its synthetic FieldTurf playing surface, had established itself as the state’s stadium for all seasons.

“We were just thrilled. That synthetic field provided us a lot of flexibility with respect to the elements,” Tom Mezzanotte, executive director of the Rhode Island Interscholastic League, said Tuesday. “If we had not played at Cranston Stadium, I think we would have had to postpone those games.”

Liberatore redirected all praise to his team: general foreman Rodney Ryan, who showed up on his own time to help out; foreman Robert E. Morin; worker Norm Jutras, who cleared the field, and Shannon.

“My guys stepped to the plate,” Liberatore said. “If not for the parks and recreation employees and the effort they put in, I don’t see those games getting off on Sunday.”

This is the first year of a three-year contract between the RIIL and the City of Cranston for use of Cranston Stadium for all four Super Bowls — the Division II game was played Monday night — plus soccer, field hockey and lacrosse playoff games. The arrangement worked so well that both parties will discuss adding the soccer finals to the lineup, although Mezzanotte did emphasize the strong relationship the RIIL has enjoyed with East Providence, where Pierce Stadium is used for the soccer tournament, and Rhode Island College, where the soccer stadium is used for the boys’ finals.

Cranston Stadium, he noted, is centrally located, and although parking is tight, the staggered starting times allowed for brief postgame celebrations and an orderly change of teams and fans.

Playing two games at night in December, when the temperature can dip into the 20s and precipitation is frozen, is not the ideal, however, so the RIIL football committee may consider staging two games per day over two days next year. Allowing sufficient recovery periods between Thanksgiving Day games and the semifinals and between the semifinals and the finals will remain a challenge.

Attendance for the four Super Bowl games was about 3,500, or about 900 per game. Those who arrived for the Division I showdown between La Salle and Barrington found a facility ready to go because Liberatore’s crew had been hard at work.

At about 8:15 a.m., Jutras climbed behind the wheel of a city-owned plow-equipped pickup truck and started removing snow from the FieldTurf playing surface. A length of PVC pipe attached to the blade of the plow enabled it to glide over the synthetic turf without gouging it. Jutras worked the length of the field and then the width. Five minutes after he finished, buses from Barrington and La Salle pulled up. Liberatore handed shovels to 10 La Salle players and asked them to shave the thin layer of remaining snow from the yard lines.

The Eagles and Rams warmed up at 11 and kicked off promptly at noon. “No delays,” Liberatore said with a grin. La Salle, Johnston and Exeter/West Greenwich won state championships on Sunday, and South Kingstown celebrated a title on Monday. Despite small piles of snow beyond the sidelines, footing was solid throughout the four games.

The city installed Field Turf in 2007 at a cost of $839,000, and the stadium is now the home of Cranston East and Cranston West football, soccer and field hockey teams. Cranston East played the first game on the new surface on Sept. 17, 2007, and the field has been used steadily ever since, except in the dead of winter. Tenants include the soccer organizations R.I. Rays and the Providence Sport and Social Club; University of Rhode Island lacrosse club; Ocean State Vipers semi-pro football team; WEFA co-ed soccer league; CLCF and Edgewood football programs and anyone else willing to pay the $200 minimum hourly rental fee.

Is Cranston Stadium popular? Check this stat. From April 1 through Nov. 30, the field was idle only 21 days. It was booked every day in June and all but one day in September and October. Liberatore estimated that 60 percent of the events are at night and the majority are soccer.

Cranston Stadium is making money for the city. Liberatore collected $6,100 from the RIIL for the football, field hockey and soccer playoff games this year. Revenues from the fiscal year that ended last June 30 were $250,187.31, $31,000 more than the budget projection. Revenues for the current fiscal year are $116,690 with a projected total of $311,000. He expects the turf to pay for itself in eight years.

And boosters from the two Cranston high schools and CLCF and Edgewood football operate the refreshment stand to earn money for their organizations.

“It’s amazing what this synthetic turf has done in this city. Before, there was no field hockey and no soccer here. There were a lot of clumps of grass, and you never knew where the ball was going. It was a football field, a mud bowl, really,” Liberatore said.

Now, it’s a 4,000-seat gem –– an additional light stanchion in the scoreboard corner would make it better –– with a crew that savors every opportunity to polish it and show it off.

Said Liberatore: “My guys take personal pride in this place.”

mszostak@projo.com