Going for Gold at the Greenwood

The ledger is known by most Oklahoma State folks. OSU has accumulated 53 NCAA team championships, all won by men's teams. The trophies are spread out over five sports: wrestling (34), men's golf (11), men's cross country (5), men's basketball (2) and baseball (1).

On the women's side, a National Collegiate Equestrian Association (NCEA) championship claimed by Larry Sanchez's Cowgirls, is OSU's first national title on the women's side. However, because equestrian is still considered an "emerging NCAA sport" by the governing body, it is not yet part of OSU's NCAA championship haul — officially.

All of this fanfare is a simple way of saying that the race is still on for OSU's first NCAA women's team title, and the stars just might be aligning, literally and figuratively, for a potential title run by OSU this spring.

With a revamped roster and high expectations, Oklahoma State will host the 2024 NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Tennis Championships at the Michael and Anne Greenwood Tennis Center on the OSU campus in May. And head coach Chris Young's Oklahoma State Cowgirl squad has expectations of being a title contender.

"I definitely think we are top-10 team," said Young, who is now in his 15th year of leading the program. "North Carolina is the defending national champion and has everyone back, and I think Stanford is better than it has been in a while, so there will be some teams right there with us.

"We're going to have the schedule in the spring to find out for sure."

When one hosts the national championships, title contenders are willing to come to town to gain knowledge of the facilities in advance of the NCAAs. As a result, the OSU women's tennis program is about to face perhaps the toughest schedule in school history.

Oklahoma State hosts Michigan and Ohio State in January, the return matches from last spring's visit to Big Ten country by the Cowgirls. The Wolverines were 25-4 a year ago and reached the elite eight of the NCAA Tournament. That overall record included two wins over OSU. The Buckeyes were in the Sweet 16 and escaped their match with the Cowgirls by a 4-3 count.

Two weeks later, perennial power and 2023 Sweet 16 participant Pepperdine will be in town. The Cowgirls will travel to Arizona State, and other national matchups are likely to be awaiting at Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) events, which feature only the top teams in America.

Excluding in-season tournament play in which opponents are still to be determined, OSU's 2024 opposition has combined to win 25 national championships.

Close Calls
It's important to note that even though no Cowgirl athletic program squad has brought home the gold trophy, OSU women's programs have long been competitive on a national basis and have been a key cog in OSU's three straight top 25 finishes in the Learfield Cup, which grades America's athletic departments on their national finishes. The national titles have been elusive, but not out of reach.

The Cowgirl soccer program has twice reached the elite eight of the NCAA Tournament before losing to the eventual national champion both times (Notre Dame and Stanford). Women's golf has finished second, and softball has multiple third-place finishes in the College World Series. The women's cross-country team finished fourth last fall, the best national finish in program history.

Which brings us to women's tennis.

In 2016, when the NCAAs were being contested at the University of Tulsa, the Cowgirl tennis squad ignited the fan base with a run to the national championship match and an eventual finals loss to Stanford in nail-biting fashion. The following year OSU advanced to the elite eight. And now, thanks to a stacked roster and a potential homecourt advantage, 2024 represents perhaps the best opportunity for a national championship since that thrilling team of 2016.

"I think this team matches up, talent-wise, on paper," Young said. "I would say our 2016 and even 2017 teams had women that were very established on the collegiate level. "But you look at this year's team, and you have a preseason top 10 ranked player (No. 8 Anastasiya Komar), and you have four players ranked in the top 100 (No. 40 Ange Oby Kajuru, No. 90 Kristina Novak and No. 93 Ayumi Miyamoto). And that doesn't count Lucia Peyre, who is one of our best players. She didn't get here until the spring, so she didn't establish a ranking at the end of last year."

The Cowgirls have two of the nation's top 40 preseason doubles tandems as well.

The national runner-up team was a squad that developed over time, with several of them putting in three and four years in Stillwater with the march to the finale the culmination of player and program development.

"That team was sort of homegrown," Young said. "They progressed and people became really enamored with them because they watched them here, every year.

"This year will be different."

The Lineup
Oklahoma State is coming off a 16-8 season, which included a 7-2 record in Big 12 play. OSU was eliminated in the second round of the tournament by No. 6 Stanford. It was a strong season with a couple of narrow misses against the nation's best teams. And it set the table for 2024.

"I think we have a good mix of older and younger players," Young said of his new-look team. "We also have some players that had the option of using the COVID year and so that is an advantage. I didn't want to bring in a lot of young players the year we are hosting. It's really hard for a freshman to have an impact with the pressure that goes with hosting.

"We wanted to get out there and see if we could find girls that were more established and so we brought in three transfers, and that was definitely intentional to bring in people with experience. But even with that mindset, we have a couple of them who have multiple years left to play, so they will continue to grow with us."

With the influx of talent and a revamped roster, it might be easy for the returning student-athletes to get lost in the shuffle. But the punching power of the newcomers has been a positive for everyone involved.

"I think the returning kids are excited," the head coach said. "I think from day one of practice, everybody could tell this was a different group with the competitiveness of the new girls. But I think we were able to get off to a good start with this team gelling together and competing against each other. And I think that is what we have been missing the last couple of years is that day-to-day competitiveness."

The newcomers are instant headline grabbers. Now a junior at OSU, Komar earned All-America honors at LSU last year as a singles and doubles player. Kajuru helped lead Iowa State to the elite eight a year ago, by far the best campaign in Cyclone history. She earned Big 12 titles in singles and doubles and was arguably the best player in the league as a sophomore. Fifth-year senior Safiya Carrington was another all-SEC pick from LSU who will finish her eligibility as a Cowgirl.

"Komar will remind people of (former Cowgirl All-American) Victoriya Lushkova," according to Young. "She is a tall, strong, powerful kid. And being a top-10 player last year as a freshman in both singles and doubles is hard to do."

"Oby Kajuru is someone who will fight for every point," he added. "She's a great competitor with a big game from the baseline. She will establish herself in singles and doubles. Carrington also has a very powerful game with a big serve. I think that's what is going to be different this year. This team is going to be very explosive with a lot of big serves. First strike tennis. We will impose our will on people a lot more than in the past."

Newcomers are always bright and shiny and objects of attention. But there is plenty of firepower among the returning players, starting with the sophomore Peyre.

"This summer, she probably had the biggest jump in her professional ranking of any collegiate player in the country. She moved up over 400 spots," Young said. "We have several players who could be considered our best player. It will definitely give us competition at the top of the lineup."

Also returning are the senior Miyamoto, an all-conference player in singles and doubles, and sophomore Raquel Gonzalez who was also an all-Big 12 doubles player.

"Everyone expects us to win the doubles point every match because we did that for a number of years," Young said. "But I do think doubles are going to be a strength of this team. Komar was a doubles All-American, Ayumi is a two-time All-America doubles player. Raquel was an all-Big 12 doubles player and just missed being an All-American, and Kajuru is a really, really strong doubles player. I think that gives us the luxury of four very strong players and seeing what teams can come together."

With a strong doubles lineup all but assured, barring injury, the attention turns to singles play where OSU's roster would appear to be top heavy in the six positions.

"I think getting the lineup in the right spots at the beginning of the season is obviously important," Young said. "And I think that's what is going to make our team strong is the is the depth at the top and the ability to be more flexible than what we have been over the past few years."

In Komar, Kajuru and Peyre the Cowgirl lineup has three contenders for national singles honors.

"There's going to be a lot of competition for spots in the lineup," according to Young. "It's hard to have a number one type of player in the lineup and we arguably will have three. I think each of them have the capability of competing with the top players in the country."

The Expectations
Under Young, OSU has gone from the hunter to at least a member of the pack that is being hunted by the rest the country. With OSU's recent history of on-court success, recruiting coups over the past two seasons, and sterling record on its home courts (OSU is 109-18 at home since the Greenwood Tennis Center opened), it's easy to see the high expectations for this year's squad. But a collegiate tennis season is a long and winding path that stretches over both semesters of the academic year.

"I would say we have the talent to compete for a title," Young said. "But our focus right now is the conference. The champion of the Big 12 has been competing for a national title since we did in 2016. I think we set the mark. So the Big 12 will be our first measuring stick. The second goal is to make the elite eight, which would be right here at home. After that, anything is possible."

Since 2014, Oklahoma State is 65-17 in Big 12 play, the second best record in the league over that span of time. And that mark has come against a league that has produced two national champions and two NCAA runner-up teams since 2016. It is an era in which the league has been dominated by Oklahoma State and Texas.

Young's blueprint for his squad is simple and sensible.

"I'm hopeful that in the fall season we can establish ourselves as a contender," he said. "I think that's the goal is to be able to measure ourselves and see where we need to improve. We have the schedule in the spring to find out for sure. We are going to push ourselves right from the beginning with Michigan, which was a top five team last season."

Oklahoma State lost a chance to host the championships when the 2020 spring season and OSU's role as NCAA host was wiped out by the pandemic. Young and the administration immediately set out to submit another winning bid, and all that it could mean for a program.

"Hosting the NCAAs gives our program added respect, not just for our facilities but for what we have built. And it obviously gives us credibility when we recruit. It has helped us the last couple of years because players want to be able to compete on their home courts for a national title. There have been some student-athletes come in over the past two years simply for the chance to win a national title at the same place where they work out every day," Young said.

Managing expectations can be a tricky thing. And that degree of difficulty can be raised when the national competition comes to your front door. But there is a massive tradeoff. The national profile of Cowgirl Tennis will climb to never-before-seen heights when the NCAAs come to town. As was the case in Tulsa in 2016, many Oklahoma State fans are likely to attend their first college tennis match.

What About the Men?
For much of the recent history of the Big 12 Conference, it has been the nation's most powerful men's tennis league in America. In fact, on two occasions Oklahoma State was winless in Big 12 play and still earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament and won first-round matches.

In 2016, as the OSU women were making their run to the championship match, the OSU men held their own. The Cowboys advanced to the Sweet 16 and fought eventual national champion Virginia tooth and nail before falling. It was Cavaliers' toughest test on their way to winning the national championship. The associate head coach for the Cavs was a fellow named Dustin Taylor.

Today, Taylor is starting his second season as head coach at Oklahoma State. He arrived in July of 2022 without a single player on his roster, and quietly went to work assembling a squad that would go 14-14 and upset No. 20 Florida in the first round of the NCAAs.

For 2024, he has welcomed to Stillwater what some consider the nation's top group of newcomers. His roster includes three student-athletes who were in the ITA preseason individual rankings, including No. 40 Tyler Zink, No. 51 Isaac Becroft and No. 116 Alex Garcia. Zink and Garcia also combine to form the nation's No. 42-ranked doubles tandem. And newcomer Derek Pham is listed among the ten best freshmen in the country.

The tennis postseason for men and women is identical. Sixteen schools are chosen to host four-team regionals. A super regional features two regional champions squaring off on the higher seed's home courts for a best two out three elimination weekend. The surviving eight schools advance to Stillwater for the national championships. Meaning the Cowboy and Cowgirls, if their seeding is high enough, could spend their entire postseason on the OSU campus.

Looking Ahead
Playing on campus in front of the friendlies has been a tremendous ignition for OSU teams competing for national titles at home. The men's golf team won the national championship in 2018 at Karsten Creek, and both cross country teams went to the wire in their national title hopes on the Greiner Family OSU Cross Country Course, with the women finishing fourth and the men finishing second in tiebreaking fashion in 2022.

In 2024, the tennis squads get their turns in their home facility with national championships on the line. It comes four years later than it was scheduled, thanks to the pandemic. But at long last, the Greenwood Tennis Center will get to do what it constructed to do — host championships.

And the Cowgirls and Cowboys will get a chance to do what they have always wanted — play on the biggest stage in American collegiate tennis, in front of fans wearing America's Brightest Orange.

Oklahoma State University Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Safiya Carrington

Raquel Gonzalez

Ange Oby Kajuru

Anastasiya Komar

Ayumi Miyamoto

Kristina Novak

Lucia Peyre

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