Stoughton High Tennis Teams Prepare to Hit the Road as Home Courts Found to be at Fault

For at least this season, the Stoughton High boys’ and girls’ tennis teams are without a home.

The courts, located adjacent to the High School parking lot and Adams Street, have been deemed to be in poor enough shape that no competitive matches will be played there, according to Ryan Donahue, director of athletics at SHS.

As a result, the Black Knights tennis teams will play all road games this spring. There is a possibility of calling Stonehill College a home away from home, playing some matches there once Stonehill’s season concludes in May, but this plan has not been finalized.

All four full-sized courts at SHS have multiple cracks, some wide enough that you could fit an adult sized finger in them. There are portions of some courts that do not have a level surface. When the weather becomes warmer, the tar underneath the top-coat on the courts bubbles through the cracks.

There is a proposed Town Meeting borrowing article for consideration, which asks for $250,000 to refurbish the tennis courts and the adjoining basketball court.

Donahue made the call to move home matches out of a concern for student safety, but also to maintain the integrity of the game.

“Tennis is a game of precision and every match that gets played would be absolutely compromised by the bounces that would take place,” he said. “It just wouldn’t be a true match and we would kind of be cheating our students out of that.”

Donahue admitted moving the matches is an inconvenience for his student-athletes.

“It’s absolutely an inconvenience but I think it would be more of an inconvenience to have suspect match play, the way the courts would allow the balls to bounce in unpredictable directions,” he said.

It’s also an inconvenience for Donahue. In addition to any other weather related rescheduling issues, he has to retool the tennis schedule as the season is about to begin.

A high school tennis match consists of five individual matches (three singles and two doubles matches), requiring five courts. Traditionally, if the boys were at home, the girls would be on the road and vice versa.

Since the teams will both be on the road, unless a school has more than five courts, Stoughton will have to travel on different days to play these matches, which causes another problem for Donahue—finding a cost efficient way to schedule these road matches.

The teams will continue to practice on the Stoughton courts. However, Donahue said the middle court, on the row of courts closest to Adams Street, could only be used for practicing volleys and serves.

The courts, which are the only public courts in Stoughton, are still available for public use.

The borrowing article to refurbish these courts has been met with some resistance. The Finance Committee voted 6-4 to not approve the article. The Board of Selectmen didn’t technically vote not to approve it, but didn’t vote to approve it either, instead agreeing with the school committee that this was the fifth priority out of six proposed borrowing articles from the schools.

Town Meeting representatives make the final call on proposed borrowing articles during May’s Town Meeting.

In a March 24 letter to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Marguerite Rizzi, Donahue worte: “These courts are in desperate need of repair, as they are the only facility available to the public in the Town of Stoughton. Because there is a drainage issue, we must use a comprehensive approach to repair. If we continue to re-surface these courts, we are going to have the same problems year in and year out. I am also recommending that we have an extra court installed; we are one of the only schools in the Hockomock League that has less [than] 5 courts.”

Canton High has dealt with similar problems with its tennis courts. Last year, Canton High girls’ tennis coach Sheila Conneely told the Canton Citizen that in the Hockomock League, the only courts in worse shape than Canton’s were Stoughton’s.

“It’s definitely a negative that our courts are in this bad a condition, but I think that the positives that can be taken out of it [are] that we’re putting our kids safety and best interests first,” Donahue said.

“Our kids have yet to complain about them, even though they’ve had every right to.”