The spring sports season officially starts in February, yet ongoing construction at NHHS inhibits teams from adequately practicing. Some teams have not had access to a home field for close to four years.
Although the spring sports season is still yet to begin, softball and baseball are deep into their pre-season preparation. However, all of these sports teams currently do not have an official location to practice, both on and off campus.
Seniors of all teams have yet to experience playing on “home territory.”
Softball Captain, Samantha Zabalaza, said, “Me being a senior, and it being my last year, it does suck not being able to play not…at your actual school.”
Zabalaza was not the only one who shared this sentiment, also mentioning that the other seniors of the softball team want to play on a field.
The lack of a field forces many of these sports teams to play on other school grounds, or public parks and recreational centers. Still, the absence of a playing field is all the same.
Baseball captain Robert Han-Dressor had stated, “It kinda sucks. As a highschooler, you want to be in front of your home school, and in front of your fans.”
For the past 3 years, these teams have been forced to use the public facilities of the local North Hollywood Recreation Center during their active seasons. The walk there is 15 minutes, and the location poses inconveniences.
Zabalaza adds, “There are some kids from Zoo [Magnet] who don’t get here until 4:10, and they would still have to walk from school to the park…by the time they get there, sometimes they will have only an hour or 30 minutes to practice.”
The inconveniences don’t stop there.
Not only are players expected to transport their school bags to their practice location, but are also responsible for transporting their own practice equipment. On top of that, despite scheduling official practice times during the season, Zabalaza says, “We have to go sometimes, last minute, ‘Oh, there’s no practice’,” due to community members or other schools occupying the field.
Despite the adversity, both teams would agree that, “Just because we don’t have a field, doesn’t mean that we stop playing and doing what we love,” as expressed by senior softball player Zaida Malaverth.
“It kinda gives us a disadvantage, but we can still work through it, and we can still win games without a field,” said Han-Dressor.
With such a delay with the construction process, many of the players expressed their expectations for the final playing field, but in the end, Zabalaza summarizes,
“I just hope that…[the field] will feel like home.”
