NATCHEZ — Henry Harris is in the process of trying to get college tennis matches in town for the City of Natchez Tricentennial Celebration in 2016.

Harris, the Tricentennial recreation director, said he’s in the preliminary stages of getting Alcorn State University and Louisiana College to play matches locally instead of having to travel long distances to face certain opponents.

With new tennis courts at the Concordia Parish Recreation District 3 complex, Harris said the area finally has enough courts to host college matches. There would be nine women’s and nine men’s matches, with six singles and three doubles matches for each sex.

“Hopefully, we’ll pull this off by the tricentennial,” Harris said. “Now that we have two sets of courts, we can finally bid on that stuff. It’d also be nice to get Alcorn or Co-Lin to play a football game here.”

Harris cited Alcorn’s yearly match with Delta State University in Vicksburg as an example of what Natchez is trying to do.

“The main thing with the coaches is wanting to find people to feed the players after the matches,” Harris said. “In Vicksburg, they have people that provide food for them.”

Natchez hosted Southwestern Athletic Conference baseball and tennis tournaments back in the 1980s, Harris said, so there’s precedent for college teams to use local facilities to play ball. By the time the Tricentennial rolls around, Harris said the city should be well-equipped to handle the extra use.

“We may have extra courts by then, so that would help even more,” Harris said.