When the University of North Florida women’s tennis team won the 2023 ASUN regular season and tournament championships, it marked the fourth consecutive regular season title and seventh tournament title in eight years.
They were shut out of both in 2024 and 2025, after going only one season since joining the ASUN in 2010 without one trophy or the other.
Did the Ospreys get complacent?
On the contrary, the conference got better and it was clear UNF had to up its game to return to the form that had led to seven regular-season championships and 10 tournament titles.
How’s 25-0 sound?
That’s the record the 2026 Ospreys will be taking into the NCAA Tournament on May 1 at Auburn University’s Yarbrough Tennis Center, when they face Miami (14-7) in the first round at 11 a.m. Auburn (32-3), seeded second in the NCAA Tournament, will play Bryant (13-7) at 2 p.m.
The winners will play on May 2 at 2 p.m, to advance to the third round.
UNF is the only unbeaten NCAA Division I team in the nation and they’re only the second Division I team to have gone unbeaten through its dual match and conference tournaments.
The Ospreys swept through the ASUN Tournament in Fort Myers, winning their first two matches in shutouts, then beating Florida Gulf Coast on their home courts 4-2 in the championship.
Coach Catherine Dunagan will have a homecoming: she was born and raised in nearby Opelika, Ala., and hopes Auburn’s homecourt advantage might be negated a bit.
“My whole family is there, I have my childhood friends, so I think we can get a good crowd out there,” Dunagan said.
UNF has never faced Miami in a dual match, although players from this year’s team faced UM opponents in fall individual tournaments.
“We focus on our game and how we compete and playing to our strengths,” Dunagan said. “Usually, we can figure it out on the court.”
The Ospreys are 0-4 lifetime against Auburn and have never faced Bryant.
UNF had a veteran team back in 2026
Dunagan said her 2024 and 2025 teams didn’t assume they would win most matches just by stepping on the court, despite the team’s track record of dominating the ASUN.
Rather, the talent they faced had improved.
“The conference has definitely gone way up,” she said. “In the past it was always us and Florida Gulf Coast [the Ospreys were first and FGCU second five times in ASUN tournaments], but Stetson came around. Lipscomb has a good program, North Alabama flipped its program around. Austin Peay is stronger. Even this year, there was the real possibility we could be undefeated going into the conference tournament and then lose, and not make the NCAAs.”
But a veteran team, with three members from the 2023 team and seven returning from last year, made sure that didn’t happen, despite some tense moments in the championship match against FGCU in Fort Myers on April 18. But the Ospreys won 4-2 to earn their 11th NCAA Tournament berth.
“The difference is that this year’s team is solid all the way down,” said graduate senior Anslee Long of St. Petersburg, who was 12-3 in singles. “We have a team that has a lot more belief and trust in ourselves. We didn’t get complacent [the last two years]. That’s not the right word. Our goal is always to win the conference championship and the conference got better. So we had to get better.”
UNF veterans dominated the post-season ASUN awards. No. 1 singles player Lauren Barendse, a senior, scored a trifecta by being voted conference Player of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year, and, along with senior Isabel Oliviera, the Doubles Team of the Year.
Olivieira joined Barendse on the All-ASUN first team, sophomore Aryana Bartlett was on the second team and May Fadida made the All-Freshman team. Dunagan was voted Coach of the Year for the fourth time.
Ospreys players tout their work ethic
UNF didn’t get better by not relying solely on their talent. It’s a team of grinders who are in good enough physical shape to win matches from the baseline but with an edge, willing to lull opponents into a false sense of security, then charge the net.
“This team motivated me, pushed me and supported me all year,” said Barendse, the only transfer on the team (from New Orleans). “The work we put in together makes it so much more special. We got the results we deserve because we all know the work we’ve put in.”
Barendse is 17-4 in singles and has a 16-3 record in doubles with Oliveira — who is 14-2 in singles.
Long, Oliviera and senior Jasmin Makela are the fourth-year players who were on the team when UNF last won the ASUN (Long was injured and red-shirted that year). Makela is 9-1 in doubles with sophomore Gabby Goyins.
It’s a senior-dominated team with four of seven in their final college season. But Goyins was 21-1 in singles; fellow sophomore Aryana Barlett was 19-4 in singles and combined with Fadida to go 11-4 in doubles. Fadida had a 13-5 singles record.
Dunagan said the transfer portal hasn’t hit college tennis at the mid-major level like it has at other sports and said the culture she has tried to instill during her seven years at UNF and the atmosphere at the school has kept players content.
“I think people are generally happy when they come here,” she said. “We’ve only had one transfer out since I’ve been here. They get better. they’re committed to our core values; they’ve seen the success we’ve had, and they want to build on that. They’re playing for UNF and for each other.”
Long said leaving UNF never crossed her mind.
“Other schools might have more transfers but it’s a family here,” she said. “This place is special and the culture coach [Dunagan] has built is hard to find in college tennis. When people get here they realize that and there’s really no reason to leave.”
Staying unbeaten for UNF hasn’t been easy
How does any team go undefeated, especially in tennis, when the balls can bounce funny and the sport is played outdoors in different conditions?
“It’s not easy,” Dunagan said. “The competition is good. Now throw in life, college tests, emotions … you get to midseason and they’re exhausted. You need to keep a pulse on the amount of rest they get. Our staff did a good job of managing that and the players took it head-on.”
Barendse said it’s hard to wrap her mind around it.
“It’s still unreal,” she said. “I still can’t believe it. It’s truly something special.”
UNF dominated many of their matches. They posted nine shutouts (two in the ASUN tournament against North Alabama and Bellarmine) but also won four matches by a 4-3 margin, including non-conference victories over South Florida and Florida Atlantic and one at Florida Gulf Coast.
It was that latter match on April 3 that was the closest call for the Ospreys.
With the team score tied at 3-3, Bartlett was locked in an epic three-set match against Ashley Matz. Bartlett won the first set 7-6, lost the second 7-5, and was down 5-3 in the third set when she battled back to tie it 5-5.
Matz then had to withdraw because of leg cramps and UNF got the victory.
It’s why the ASUN championship over FGCU two weeks later was especially sweet.
“We were excited to play them again, and we wanted to do it the right way,” Dunagan said.
Ospreys had to rally in singles to win ASUN
However, it wasn’t without its share of drama. The Eagles won two of three doubles sets to secure the doubles point, and their team began celebrating, a bit early as it turned out.
FGCU had a 14-0 record when winning doubles. But UNF had won five matches in singles after losing in doubles.
“I reminded our team that we had done this before,” Dunagan said. “We were prepared.”
With a sizable contingent of FGCU fans getting vocal (“We couldn’t hear ourselves out there,” Barandse said.), UNF went to work. Goyins and Long won in straight sets at Nos. 5 and 6 singles and with the score 2-2, Oliviera and Bartlett won three-set singles matches to clinch the title.
Watching and waiting was Barendse, who was up 4-3 in the third set against Nora Svensson. When Bartlett won for the fourth and clinching point, Barendse’s match was left unfinished and the celebration began.
“I had so much trust in the ones playing next to me,” she said. “I kept playing, but I was looking at the next court [where Bartlett was playing], waiting for the moment. I knew it would come. Not needing my point to win the championship made me so proud of my team.”
Bartlett said the team “battled our hearts out.”
“I think they celebrated like they had already won it,” Bartlett said. “Winning the doubles point is huge but there were still six more matches. It was tough. It was loud and it was nerve-wracking but we managed to sort it out.”
What’s next for the Ospreys?
No one with UNF has any illusions about the NCAA Tournament. Since the team championship format began in 1982, no one outside of the Pac-12, SEC, Big 12 or ACC has won a national championship, with Stanford winning 19 times and the Florida Gators seven.
Only two teams outside those conferences have been the runner-up: Pepperdine in 2021 and Trinity (Texas) in 1983.
“We’ve accomplished our goal of winning the conference,” Long said. “Everything else is a bonus. The more we can play and practice together, and be together, the better.”
Barendse has only one regret, that she can’t repeat her two years at UNF.
“My passion is for tennis and being on a team,” she said. “I’ve had the best four years of my life playing college tennis and if I could play four more here, I would do it.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: North Florida women’s tennis takes unbeaten record to NCAA Tournament
Reporting by Garry Smits, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
