Goshen College Women's Tennis Makes Historic NAIA Win

Freshman Marin Kawano stepped onto the court in Mobile, Alabama with her team's fate in her hands, and she delivered when it mattered most.

The Goshen College women's tennis team secured their first-ever NAIA National Championship tournament win on Tuesday, defeating Holy Cross 4-3 in a nail-biter. For a program that had never even qualified for nationals as a team before this season, the victory marks a remarkable milestone.

The match couldn't have been closer. After Goshen jumped to a 3-1 lead, Holy Cross roared back to tie it 3-3, leaving everything to Kawano's match at the number five singles position.

The freshman had been here before. She'd already clinched two postseason wins for the Leafs this year, and she wasn't about to let her teammates down. Kawano won her first set in a tiebreak, then closed out the match 6-4 in the second set.

The victory came against a Holy Cross team that had beaten Goshen 4-3 in early March. But the Leafs have been unstoppable since then, winning 13 of their last 15 matches.

Senior Blanka Bodo made history of her own during the match. Her doubles victory gave her 45 career doubles wins, breaking a school record that had stood for two decades. Her singles win was her 50th career victory, extending her own program record.

Why This Inspires

This season has been about more than one match or one player. Five of the top six single-season win records at Goshen have come from players on this year's roster, with Sara Nino and Bodo each notching 20 wins.

The team's success represents something bigger than tennis. It's the sixth national tournament win in Goshen College history across any sport, and the first since the women's basketball team won a quarterfinal in 2016.

These athletes have rewritten their program's record books while supporting each other through pressure-packed moments. When Kawano needed to deliver, her teammates trusted her completely.

Now the 14th-seeded Leafs face their biggest challenge yet: third-seeded Tennessee Wesleyan, winners of 16 straight matches. But if this season has taught Goshen anything, it's that records are made to be broken.