With the first win over London ever and a 9-3 record overall, it seems this season for the girls tennis team has been a victorious one, but one issue has remained: the shortage of courts to play on.
Currently there are 4 tennis courts, and in tennis you would typically play 2 on 2, so 4 athletes on each court, having a maximum of 16.
Junior Stephanie Troyer says, “I’ve had multiple matches have to be cut short because it’s getting too dark because we don’t have enough time to play (our full matches.) Also, our record this year is so much better than last year and 1 or 2 more courts would be great, and I think it is (popular enough) there are a lot of players and a lot more people getting into it.”
Coach Bryan Deeken explains that athletes waiting to start their matches has to do with OHSAA guidelines.
“OHSAA Defines an inter-scholastic match as 3 singles (1 on 1) and 2 doubles (2 on 2) against 3 singles and 2 doubles,” he says. “so that’s 5 courts needed to start a match right away. We play 4 (and) 1 of our varsity players sits while they wait for a court to be open.”
The only problem is that there are a whopping 27 players on the roster, which also impacts practice time.
Junior Caitlyn Yates says, “…it’s very hard because we don’t get as much playing time because we have to have multiple people on a court to practice, and we have to wait a long time until we can do other drills.”
Ideally, the school district could just buy 1-2 more courts, but funding can be complicated.
Our courts are made out of artificial turf, and according to Angi, the average cost of an artificial turf court is $25,000-80,000.That is actually the cheapest choice instead of clay or concrete.
Funding for the tennis team relies on student-run fundraisers and contributions from the Athletic Boosters for their yearly supplies.
“We can try and get local businesses to support us but it will have to be a multi-year long fundraiser,” says junior Estrella Flores-Villanueva.
Some fundraisers are already in place.
“The school athletic office has a budget for us, we use that for nets if we need new nets and tennis balls,” says Deeken, “then we have an annual fundraiser, and for the first time this year we had a tennis camp we charged for the tennis camp and those two things go to the boosters.”
Junior Kenlee Thomas adds that the level of competition increases the need for more courts. “…the next two years we’re gonna be D1 on tennis so we should probably start now,” she says.
Deeken agrees that the courts would be helpful for the team overall, but it’s not something that can happen right away.
“We probably would have to start with the board of education to approve the project,” he says. “It will take some land on the campus and that’s gonna take away some space. I think that would put us in a position to win a conference title.”
The girls compete at OHSAA tennis sectionals on Oct. 1.
