In first NCAA Tournament action in decade, Arizona women's tennis season ends with loss to Oklahoma

After losing the doubles point — despite a decisive 6-1 Court 1 win for UA pair Reece Carter and Brandelyn Fulgenzi — the Wildcats couldn’t muster an early singles victory to keep the match with the No. 18 Sooners going.

Oklahoma moved on to face 13th-seeded Texas A&M, the College Station regional host this weekend, in a second-round match Sunday with a Sweet 16 berth on the line; Texas A&M defeated Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 4-0 in a match that began shortly after the Wildcats and Sooners finished.

The Wildcats’ season ends with defeat, but not without a number of successes pointing to a future on the upswing.

The biggest tell on that front: Arizona (17-13, 4-6 Pac-12) being selected for the NCAA Tournament in the first place for the first time in a decade, this time under fifth-year head coach Ryan Stotland.

Arizona, ranked No. 41 nationally heading into the NCAA Tournament, also won its opening-round match at the Pac-12 Tournament in Ojai, California — this year’s a 4-0 defeat of Oregon — for the second consecutive year.

On an individual level, the Wildcats also saw three players earn postseason recognition from the Pac-12.

On Friday, the conference announced UA sophomore Reece Carter as a first-team All-Pac-12 selection for the second consecutive season.

First-year Wildcat Brandelyn Fulgenzi, a transfer from Incarnate Word who was the Southland Conference’s Player of the Year in 2023, was named second-team All-Pac-12

And fifth-year Kayla Wilkins earned All-Pac-12 Honorable Mention status for the second time in her career.

Speaking at the team’s NCAA Tournament Selection Show watch party Monday on the UA campus, Wilkins reflected on the work it’s taken for the UA program to get back to that point.

“It’s really exciting. Really special,” Wilkins said. “We put in a lot of work, and not just this year.

“Just in building this program back up,” she added. “This is not just a one-year thing.”