UCSB Women’s Tennis clinches Big West regular season championship title
April 21, 2026 at 6:34 pm
UC Santa Barbara No. 48-ranked Women’s Tennis team faced No. 73 California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo at Ronca Tennis Center on Saturday, April 18. In a blue-green rivalry match, UCSB delivered a 4-0 sweep.
Ending the regular season with back-to-back matches, UCSB carried the momentum from their match on Friday, April 17, where they defeated California State University, Northridge 4-0 on the Gaucho’s home turf.
The Gauchos dominated the Big West conference this season, sweeping UC Riverside in a 7-0 win, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 7-0 and both CSUN and Cal Poly 4-0. The team ended the season undefeated in the Big West Conference, going 15-8 overall (9-0 Big West), claiming the regular-season Big West championship title. Their opponents for Saturday’s match, Cal Poly, went 12-9 overall and 7-2 in the Big West.
The match started off strong on courts one and two. The No. 2 doubles, sophomore Lily Pradkin and graduate student Shanelle Laconi, who dominated the court in a 6-1 victory. No. 1 doubles junior Ekua Youri and freshman Caroline Beard followed, beating the Mustangs 7-6 with a 7-3 tiebreaker win.
Going 1-0 over the Mustangs, the single matches secured the Gauchos with a 4-0 sweep. All singles matches were completed in straight sets. Finishing first, singles sophomore Emma Tutoveanu won 6-2 and 6-1. Following up, singles sophomore Raphaelle Leroux continued the Gauchos’ dominance with a 6-1 and 6-3 win.
With the championship at stake, No.4 singles Pradkin shut out the Mustangs with a 6-2 and 7-6 win with a 7-3 tiebreaker. This victory earned the Gauchos the Big West regular-season championship title for the 2025-26 season.
With the results secured, singles No.1, 2 and 5 were not finished.
The only loss of the day was No.3 doubles, sophomore Emma Tutoveanu and freshman My-Anh Holmes, who were defeated 6-2 by the Mustangs.
The Gauchos clinched the top seed in the Big West Championship, which will take place at Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego, April 22-25. Securing the top seed pushes the Gauchos to a semifinals spot on April 24 at 10 a.m.
What an awesome run by the Gauchos lately! Pulling off that solid sweep against Cal Poly to lock down the regular season title was super impressive, especially knowing how tense those matchups always get. Honestly, keeping up with college sports stats used to be kind of a headache for me until a friend put me on to nhlprediction.com for tracking form and team trends. Even though it’s mainly hockey focused, those deep stats really helped me read close games like this one. Huge congrats to UCSB for keeping their cool and taking it home!