Cowgirl Tennis Beats Stanford to Earn Spot in NCAA Quarterfinals

Oklahoma State is still alive after another impressive postseason performance.

On Saturday, OSU women’s tennis hosted Stanford in the Sweet 16 and looked to continue its magical postseason run. The Cowgirls earned a 4-3 win over the Cardinal to advance to the national quarterfinals.

While all of the Cowgirls played well on Saturday, two heroes emerged for OSU in the final stages of the match. With OSU trailing 3-2, it needed both Rose Marie Nijkamp and Gracie Epps to win their singles matches in the third set, and both came through.

Epps was the last to finish on Court 5, winning 6-4, 6-7, 6-4 against Stanford’s Alexandra Yepifanova. Before that, Nijkamp secured a win on Court 3, taking the final two sets for the victory.

Over the first four singles matches, OSU secured only one win, but the Cowgirls’ opening with a win in doubles was critical to their success. After beating Tulsa and Oklahoma to get to this point, the Cowgirls are clearly a legitimate contender to win the national title.

However, to reach that goal, they will have to defeat Michigan next round. The Cowgirls fell to the Wolverines earlier this season, with a 4-2 loss in February.

Last season, the Cowgirls squandered what might have been their best opportunity to win a national championship. Going unbeaten throughout the regular season and winning the Big 12 title, OSU remained unblemished going into the Sweet 16 in 2024.

However, the Cowgirls suffered a heartbreaking upset loss against Tennessee to end their season. Another reason that the loss was so crushing was that the match took place in Stillwater, where OSU was also set to host the NCAA Championships. 

In a season where OSU was the unquestioned No. 1 team and had already won the ITA Indoor National Championship, the Cowgirls narrowly missed out on an opportunity to try and win it all in front of a home crowd. Despite their struggles early this season, the Cowgirls again put together a great season and a team capable of making a deep run.

However, this time they were able to become one of the final eight teams standing and still have a shot at taking home a national title.