Rather than driving the 30-plus miles for a “home match,” the NIU tennis team will be in the center of campus on new courts. But not just yet.

This weekend, the women’s tennis team will play its first home games of the season at the Clock Tower Resort Hotel in Rockford.

With good weather expected in the near future, women’s tennis coach Laura Scott hopes the outdoor West Campus Courts – between Stevenson Towers and Ralph McKinzie Field – will be ready for the team’s next home game on April 9.

Both the men’s and women’s teams will adopt it as their new outdoor home court.

The tennis teams use the Campus Recreation Center only for nonconference home games, Scott said. Since the weather won’t permit, the Huskies can’t play outside at the Anderson Hall Courts on the east side of campus this weekend.

The women’s team (4-5 overall, 0-1 MAC) will begin its stretch of eight MAC meets in four weekends today versus Buffalo (7-4, 0-2) and Saturday against Akron (7-4, 0-2).

“Our seniors [Kristin McIntyre, Branka Savic and Karrie Tyioran] have a big desire to do well in the MAC this season,” Scott said. “If they play as well as they’ve been practicing, we should do all right this weekend.”

We didn’t start the fire

The equipment shed next to the West Campus Courts that burned down in spring 2000 signified the departure of the NIU tennis team to a new location.

“It actually happened when one of our seniors [Tyioran] was here on her recruiting trip, and it was the night before that it was burned down,” Scott said.

The team officially moved to Anderson Hall in 1998, but the burning of the shed was an added eyesore for the courts.

Four years after the alleged arson, the West Campus Courts are expected to be ready for the end of the 2003-’04 season.

It’s a long time coming, said Dee Abrahamson, NIU associate athletic director, who oversees both men’s and women’s tennis.

“Athletics used to have 12 courts on the West Campus Courts,” she said. “They took six of the courts down for grass and walkways. Then the courts got cracked and rundown. Ideally, they would’ve never left the West Campus Courts.”

Where the tennis team has played its home games the past six years has been as much of a mystery as what – or who – caused the fire.

“The University Police never solved the crime,” Abrahamson said. “But we did find two empty cans of lighter fluid nearby, but they were never able to do anything with it.”

Hitting the road at home

Despite hosting the MAC tournament on April 22-25, the women’s tennis team will stay at a hotel in Rockford.

In October, the NIU athletics department wasn’t sure if Curran Construction Company would be finished with the renovations on the West Campus Courts.

“We needed to make a decision to let the nine visiting coaches know where to make the hotel reservations. We thought it was too much of a risk to plan it [at NIU]; it was too big of a gamble.”

Traveling the 45 minutes to Rockford to play home games can be an advantage because the team stays more focused getting away from campus, said junior Cassie Drake, who leads the team with a .739 winning percentage at 17-6.

As the situation stands, the tennis teams share time at Anderson Courts with physical education students. This can be an inconvenience, added Drake, who looks forward to the completion of the West Campus Courts.

“It will be nice having more access to the court and not having to share it with the public,” she said. “They are going to be our courts, and we aren’t going to have to share them.”

She also looks forward to the central location of the West Campus Courts, which is near the other athletics facilities and more convenient for students to watch matches.

“We definitely lack the fan support now,” Drake said. “When we go to other schools, there are always other people there to supply more enthusiasm for the whole team.”

The tennis team won’t ignore Anderson Courts completely. Abrahamson said it could be used in conjunction with the West Campus Courts for bigger tournaments.

While the weather is the deterring factor in completing the West Campus Courts, the tennis teams will count down the days until they get a more stable home.

“When I first started coaching in 1994, that’s where we were at, and I always enjoyed it,” Scott said. “It will almost be like going from the field house to the Convo Center.”

The NIU men’s team (10-3) will travel this weekend to face Western Illinois (4-5) in Macob.