Cowgirls Prove They Built a Team on the Fly With Bedlam NCAA Conquest
STILLWATER – It is really an exercise in human spirit, consideration, and possibly a little brainwashing. I know that last part won’t be viewed positively by everybody. College athletics asks coaches and athletes in several very individual sports to become teams, good teammates, put all the focus that in sports like golf, wrestling, track and field, and tennis is almost always on one’s self and split it, share it, become a team. Oklahoma State director of tennis and women’s tennis head coach Chris Young has been able to do that on several occasions. He did it in 2016 when the Cowgirls came within points of winning the NCAA Championship. He did it again last season as the Cowgirls won the ITA Indoor National Championship and were 29-0 and on the verge of playing in the final eight of the NCAA on their home courts when two major injuries hit in the super regional with Tennessee and the Cowgirls lost 4-2. Young has done it again, but this one may be his best ever. He must share this one with the players. In fact, he will tell you they were the ones that had to get it done.
Get it done they did. Oklahoma State is starting five players that weren’t wearing orange and black on the tennis court last season. The courts they played on weren’t in Stillwater. They weren’t on the team. Only Anastasiya Komar was playing for OSU. Add transfers Kylie Collins from LSU, Marcela Lopez from Utah, and Gracie Epps, a Norman, Okla. native, coming from Georgia. Freshman Rose Marie Nijkamp was here from the start and then after the Australian Open here came Melisa Ercan, a player with pro experience from Turkey.
On March 2 this team was 7-6 and had just lost to UCF at home to go to 1-1 in Big 12 Conference play. Since then, the Cowgirls have gone 14-1 and the last two came on Friday and Saturday of last week in Norman with a 4-0 win over Tulsa and then a come from behind 4-2 win over No. 6 seed and host Oklahoma.
“It was a lot like when I watch Lushkova in the 2016 NCAA put us in the final because our girls were all watching and holding hands, getting ready to run together and just to see them run and cheer … Lucia (Peyre) jumped about as high as anybody, so it feels good to see her knee has improved,” Young said of the moment of celebration in Norman. Peyre by the way was one of those injuries in 2024 against Tennessee as she tore her ACL and is rehabbing.
“Just to be able to see the girls excited and support Melisa (Ercan closed the match) and Nas (Komar) leading all the girls,” continued Young. “It was a pretty cool moment.”
“I played next to Rose (Marie Nijkamp) and Melisa (Ercan), and I saw Rose win and I feel like I always know she is going to win and put a point on the board. I wasn’t surprised about that,” Komar said of the tenseness in the match. “I saw Melisa was done 0-4 and I wasn’t really down because I knew she could come back. I stepped up and won and knew we had a great chance to win.”
They did, after falling behind 0-2 losing the doubles point and the first singles match that finished there were three matches that went to the third set. Komar, Gracie Epps, and Ercan. Epps finished first winning the third set 6-1.
Komar was next winning her third set 6-2.
Then with the whole team watching, Ercan rallied from that 0-6 first set to win the second 7-5, and the third 6-2.
“We are very close. This team has spent a lot of time together,” Komar told me. “I wouldn’t think I would ever say this, but I think we are closer than the team was last year.”
“I agree with that,” Young jumped at the thought. “I think this team is a lot closer even that last year and that was a calling card for that team, how close they were. This team has truly become a unit. You add four pieces in January and then Melisa comes so late, it just takes a lot of time to build that chemistry. They have spent a lot of time together.”
Who says team building is just a lot of talk?
Now, Oklahoma State fans get one more chance to see that team love for each other and loyalty in person. The upset over OU gives the Cowgirls Oklahoma’s seed and they will host Stanford at 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 10 in the Greenwood Tennis Center.
