The Los Altos High School girls tennis team is strapped for practice time as Mountain View High School campus construction — which covers the tennis courts — pushes the Spartans onto the Eagles’ courts. The District has assigned the Spartans to Rengstorff Park in the interim, but there isn’t enough space for the whole team to compete, so their matches have been assigned to LAHS courts.

“Los Altos High School was informed by the District that we would be sharing space with Mountain View to accommodate for the lack of tennis courts right now,” LAHS Athletic Director Michelle Noeth said. “I’ve made a schedule for the two coaches to not have conflicting matches, but overall we just have to be flexible.”

While this scheduling conflict hasn’t affected matches, it has impaired the Eagles’ ability to consistently practice. On the days that the Spartans have home games scheduled, the Eagles lose access to the courts. As a result, Monday practices have been canceled altogether and Wednesday practices, if not canceled as well, are in Milpitas for varsity and Menlo Park for JV. The team foresees that this schedule will remain throughout the entire season.

“Mountain View’s matches are scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays so we really have no practice time,” varsity doubles player senior Sofia Mujica said. “Whereas MVHS practices at Rengstorff on their off days, we’re going match after match with little practice before each.”

There is little the Eagles can do about the inconvenience. The team is currently trying to work their practice times around MVHS matches, but there are often few hours of daylight left to practice in. 

“Essentially, this becomes [Mountain View’s] home court for certain days,” LAHS varsity girls tennis coach Hung Nguyen said. “Seeing as how Saint Francis High School has had an agreement with the City for so many years, I was hoping we could come to some agreement to help Mountain View have their own space too. But unfortunately this is the situation we were left with.”

The Eagles have been optimizing in the only way they can, finding practice spaces and times whenever possible. These challenges have made the start of the season difficult, but the Eagles are already seeing improvement. They celebrated their first win of the season on Tuesday, September 21, where they dominated against Saratoga High School 7–0.

The JV girls have proved their resilience too, by winning all four of their matches by significant margins against Gunn High School, Cupertino High School, MVHS and Saratoga High School. The Eagles hope for a more consistent schedule as the season progresses, but they have faith that they will triumph in future matches regardless.