The girls’ tennis season officially started more than a month ago and there has been one day of action on the courts in Aberdeen since then. That is about to change in a major way.

Aberdeen Central and Aberdeen Roncalli both have five home duals this week, including one against each other on Saturday to cap off the annual Elliott Extravaganza.

Their schedules are nearly identical as both will host St. Thomas More today (Roncalli at 11 a.m. at Northern and Central at 2 p.m. at Holgate), and face Rapid City Central and Rapid City Stevens on Friday, while Central plays Pierre and Roncalli meets Watertown on Saturday.

“The next week there’s going to be a lot of tennis,” said Central coach John Vogel. “If people like to watch people play tennis, this is a good week.”

While Roncalli hosted Huron and Mitchell back on Aug. 13, today will be the home opener for the Golden Eagles.

“We never really think about it,” Vogel said of the schedule. “We’re just so used to going somewhere every week for tennis.”

Roncalli coach Jason Haskell said the season goes by so fast, that the players don’t have much time to think about the number of matches on the road compared to at home.

“We get so used to playing on the road and tennis gets to be such a squished, truncated season, that I don’t think we know where we are half the time,” Haskell said.

Central used to host Milbank in a dual in early September, but that hasn’t happened lately, meaning that the late home opener has become a bit of the norm.

“It’s just how our schedule goes,” Vogel said. “We start on the road and we know we’ll have a home stretch at the end.”

Not only have the Golden Eagles been on the road for the entire season so far, there have been no short trips.

“We don’t go to Watertown, we don’t go to Huron, we don’t go to Milbank,” Vogel said. “Our closest one now is Brookings.”

The season will be fast coming to a close with the state tournaments scheduled for the first full week in October. Having busy schedules the rest of the way will make things go even faster.

“It’s crazy,” Haskell said. “These last couple weeks have a lot of matches in them too, so they fly by.”

Because Central plays a lot of matches on Saturdays, it has limited the amount of time that players have had to miss school, although there have been a few late nights, like last Tuesday when the squad played in Madison.

“We’re getting done under the lights like at 9 o’clock, we’re closing McDonald’s down, and then we have to drive home,” Vogel said. “I walk into my house at 12:50 (a.m.).”

Haskell said missing school can present a challenge, especially for younger athletes who aren’t used to the tennis routine.

“It’s tough,” Haskell said, “they’re there for school and school is the most important thing.”

Central is gearing up for the Eastern South Dakota Conference Tournament in Watertown Sept. 30-Oct. 1 The Golden Eagles are the defending champion.

“I didn’t think I’d like the two-day ESD, but then the very first year we went and won it,” Vogel said, “so now I’m thinking alright, I guess it’s not so bad. We’ll try it again.”

Up first is a busy week for the both local teams, which will culminate in their only meeting against each other on Saturday afternoon in front of what will likely be the largest gallery of the regular season for each squad.

“The Elliott Extravaganza is always one of my favorite events,” Haskell said. “My assistant/my wife Kelly Rae played under Burt Elliott and it always brings back great memories of her and tennis, and just tennis in Aberdeen in general.”