Thousands of dollars worth of tennis equipment stolen from Stockton high school

A Stockton high school tennis team is trying to recover after thieves stole thousands of dollars worth of equipment from campus over the weekend, taking gear that students and their coach spent years fundraising to purchase. 

Bear Creek High School tennis players and coach Gayle Litz discovered the theft Monday after finding their storage areas open.

"For that to happen, it was just like shocking," Bear Creek tennis player Madison Rivera said.

Coach Litz has coached tennis at the high school for over a decade. Getting to this point has been a lot of work.

"When I first got here, we had $100 and no equipment at all. None at all," she said. "All of these things were fundraised by the kids. These weren't what the school provided us, except for the tennis balls themselves, but everything else — the rackets, the shoes, the ball machine, the bags, even the leaf blower — all of those things were fundraised by the kids."

When Monday arrived and they saw their storage unit was open, she knew something was wrong.

"They ran back and they said, 'Coach, everything's open. The shed is open.' The shed behind us was also open," Litz explained. "We ran over and then we just started noticing how much was gone. That was painful."

Rackets, tennis balls, shoes, uniforms and even a ball machine were all taken. The thieves broke through multiple fences to gain access to the storage unit.

It was another heartbreak as the courts went under a major renovation and opened three weeks ago.

"It's gonna affect our team because the ball machine...that's what we used to play," tennis player Iliana Ferreyra said. "It might take a while for each person to play."

Now, Litz and the entire team are pushing forward.

As tennis season is underway, all they can do is turn to the community for help and focus on the game.

"I said, 'Look, we have a match tomorrow. We're not going to let this slow us down. We're going to stay strong. We're going to be resilient,'" Coach Litz shared. "I just said, 'Please don't be distracted by all this. We will be okay. We really will. We'll be okay.'"

Stockton police did confirm the high school opened a case with the department Tuesday morning.

The investigation into what happened and who stole the equipment is still ongoing.