The pressure was on for Allegheny’s women’s tennis team heading into the fall 2025 season. As the defending Presidents’ Athletic Conference champions, they knew other teams would be out to take their crown. The tension didn’t get to the team, however, which they proved by ending the season with a shutout 12-0 record.

“I am super excited for the women winning their second straight PAC Championship,” said Women’s Tennis Head Coach David Hayden. “They are a talented group who worked hard all season to put themselves in the position to repeat as champions.”

Many of the team members credit that record to an increased emphasis on teamwork, both on and off the court. The players made it a point to eat meals together and hang out outside of practice and team lifts, which created a tight-knit team environment and trust between the players.

“If someone was down, you’d always hear someone cheer from however many courts down they were,” Evie Ellenberger, ’28, said. “You’d always hear someone cheering for you, and that definitely was encouraging; knowing that you had your team to fall back on was motivating.”

The team captains, including Ellenberger, and upperclassmen made it a point before and during the season to do teambuilding activities that encouraged intra-team connections and communication. This strengthened communication on the court, something that was especially important for the doubles teams during matches.

“Sometimes it’s hard to get everyone involved when there’s a lot of people,” Rei Etsumi, ’27, said. “This year, it was a smaller team, so it was a little bit easier to have connections with all the teammates.”

Individual players also felt the pressure of being defending champions, which altered how they approached their season this year.

“Last year we didn’t have anything to lose,” Ellenberger said. “This year, we had all the pressure, the people wanted to beat us and coach made sure to get that fact across.”

As defending champions, the Gators knew that their opponents would be out to get them at each and every match this season. As such, the captains and coach decided that one of their focuses this season would be the mental game.

“We focused a lot on positive body language on the court,” said Ellenberger. “You didn’t let your opponent know how you were feeling, if you got upset. I do know a lot of us struggled with that because tennis is more of a mental game than a physical game. You might hear that a lot, and I can admit that it’s true. It’s more mental; you get in your head more, you can get down on yourself easily. But coach really wanted us to focus on being positive, and once we started to have more fun and relax, then we could forget about the score, and that’s how I could tell we won.”

The work also paid off for Etsumi when she fell into a slump just a few weeks before PAC championships.

“I lost to someone I wasn’t supposed to lose to,” she said. “I was not mentally in the match, and 80 percent of tennis is really mindset; if your mind is not on the court, you will play really differently. It was really stressful, and I learned that it’s not about the skills sometimes — you also have to put your mind to it. Even though you’re not feeling well, when you want to win or when you want to play well, when you step on the court and change your mindset.”

Other players, including Gaby Bassette, ’27, also appreciated the insistence on the mental aspect of tennis.

“There was a match against Saint Vincent where this girl was a moonballer (a player who hits high shots),” said Bassette. “She just got everything back. It really annoyed me, and I lost the first set, but I won the second and third matches, thanks to my mental discipline.”

The Gators are now heading into their offseason, which includes a variety of different training plans, including practicing with teammates and friends, honing specific skills and training in the gym and on the court. The Gators’ season picks back up over spring break with a trip to Orlando, Florida, where the women’s team will compete against the University of Mary Washington and the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology on March 3. For the Gators, this trip is an opportunity to play non-PAC teams, get more competitive practice before the start of the spring season and take a break from Meadville’s snow and rain.

Overall, the Allegheny Gators women’s tennis team is proud of their accomplishments — an undefeated season and a second PAC championship. They are eager to carry that energy into the spring season and the 2026 NCAA Championships.

“If we let up, we’re not going to win,” Ellenberger said. “We have to play the same games we’re playing, stay high intensity for us to pull through.”