Photo of ASC Tournament MVP Breanna Taylor courtesy of UMHB Sports Information
CLAREMONT, California — Breanna Taylor remembers the conversation well. UMHB head tennis coach Daniel White had gathered Taylor and her women’s tennis teammates together at the start of the spring semester to talk about the months that lay ahead.
They were a young group, mostly freshmen and sophomores with a handful of upperclassmen mixed in. But they were special. The fall had shown that, as The Cru put up solid results through three events in September, tuning up for the spring dual-match season, and hopefully, a return trip to the ASC Tournament final.
But White wasn’t thinking about his team just getting back to where they were in 2024-25, when they went 4-0 in conference play and fell narrowly to ETBU, 4-3, with a spot in the national tournament on the line. He had his sights set higher.
UMHB had never won the ASC Tournament in over two decades of playing in the conference. They had come close, but a conference championship had eluded them in each instance when it felt within reach. Then and there, as Taylor noted, the Crusaders made a commitment to change that, well aware of the talent standing in the room.
“He said, ‘We have a real shot to do it this year. Nobody’s ever done it,’” Taylor remembers hearing White say. “We had no idea. I think the idea of that really motivated us.”
On the last Saturday of April two weeks ago, playing on their home courts at the Yvonne Li Tennis Center, that goal was realized. A day after sweeping Howard Payne, 4-0, UMHB found itself in a rematch with ETBU, bringing back memories from the 2025 title match.
But this time around, The Cru controlled the day from start to finish. Taylor and fellow freshman Emma Nordin showed their chemistry in doubles play with a comeback 6-4 win, securing the doubles point for UMHB. Then in singles action, Taylor swept her duel with Jazmyn Ford-Shartner, and her teammates followed suit. UMHB did not drop even one singles set, and Avery Williams clinched the conference championship at Line No. 6 with a 6-1, 7-5 win over Amelia Anding.
“I’m incredibly proud of the hard work and energy the team put in this year,” White said afterwards in a recap from cruathletics.com. “They continually raised the bar throughout the season and are well deserving of this championship.”
The post-match celebration, surrounded by family and friends in Belton, was gratifying. The season’s journey had taken UMHB through a number of challenging tests, from the narrow win over Southwestern in February to a series of tough opponents in Florida in March, and even the 6-1 loss to UC-Santa Cruz less than a week before the conference tournament got underway. Each test had made The Cru a little stronger.
“We worked so hard to get there, and being able to do it on our home courts was special,” Taylor, who was named ASC Tournament MVP, said last week. “To think about the hard work we’ve put in since August, and how far we’ve come and how much we’ve grown has just been so cool. To now have our names in history is so special.”
The win not only secured the first-ever ASC championship trophy for UMHB women’s tennis, but it also clinched a spot for The Cru in the NCAA D-III Tournament, which begins Thursday. UMHB learned of its next destination in a selection show on Monday, set to play at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges in the opening round of the tournament.
The Cru will play Whitman, the Northwest Conference champion, at 1 p.m. CT on Thursday. The Blues are No. 34 in the most recent ITA D3 Rankings, while UMHB enters its first NCAA postseason ranked No. 49.
“We just come to practice and know that our job isn’t finished yet,” Taylor said. “While we did get our team goal [of winning the ASC] this year, there’s still more to be done.”
It has been a season of learning for Taylor and the team’s other freshmen, whose introduction to college tennis has been incredibly successful. Part of that ability to fit right in and stand out in their roles—which ultimately helped UMHB win the ASC—has been the presence of the team’s juniors and seniors, a quartet composed of Lori Bryan, Emily Higgs, Jolin Ha, and Bailee Lane. Their leadership, Taylor notes, has been impactful throughout the entire journey, starting back in the fall and continuing through this postseason run.
“We have six freshmen out of our 10 on the roster,” Taylor noted. “The way the returners just took us all in and made us feel like family is some of the reason why we won conference. We are so close. The leadership from the returners, for us, has been so impactful.”
Their determination to win a team conference title was reflected from the beginning, Taylor said, in the atmosphere around the program. The focus was centered more on the team goals than individual ones and the environment on the courts—whether in practice or matches—was loose, helping to put the freshmen at ease.
“I think the friendship that we have across the team has made everything so much more comfortable,” Taylor added. “From the get-go, there was no awkwardness at all. Once we got to know the returners, it just felt like home. I think being on this campus all the time and sharing those tight bonds with the team has made the transition [to the college level] so easy.
“I go to practice every day and feel like I’m with my family, because we’re all so close.”
Taylor’s bond with Nordin, the ASC Freshman of the Year, is especially evident. The two talented freshmen have teamed up in doubles play all season, combining to go 13-3, with an 8-2 mark over their last 10 matches. Their chemistry has turned into results on the court, and provided some key points for The Cru along the way, none bigger than the 6-4 win over the ETBU tandem of Jazmyn Ford-Shartner and Kristyn Dunn in the ASC final, which secured the doubles point for UMHB. They will look to do the same against whoever Whitman throws their way on Thursday afternoon.
“I think from the get-go, me and Emma bonded very well,” Taylor noted. “With both of us being freshmen, we relate really well on that level. We have so much fun on the doubles court. I remember one of our captains was watching one of our doubles matches one time, and she said, ‘Y’all are having a blast’. We were like, ‘Yeah, that’s what we do.’ Win or lose, we’re going to have fun. We get along so well off the court that it really has transitioned onto the court.”
They’ll bring that easy-going approach—and relentless competitive edge—to the West Coast, representing UMHB in its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance. The stage will be bigger, but that doesn’t worry the Crusaders. Taylor played in a pair of state semifinals during her time at Lindale High School, and many of her teammates have similar experiences of playing in these sorts of pressure moments, whether it be in earlier years at UMHB or in high school. It’s hard to simulate an NCAA championship atmosphere in the regular season, but The Cru does draw some confidence from the schedule they played in the months leading up to Thursday’s duel. In the regular season, UMHB went toe-to-toe against No. 21 Denison, No. 28 UW-La Crosse, No. 35 Haverford, No. 44 UC-Santa Cruz, and No. 51 Southwestern.
“I think for us, beating some pretty solid teams and getting some of those matches under our belt gave us more confidence of, ‘Hey, we do belong here and we are good enough to play at this level.’ That was something I saw personally in my game, and also saw across our team. Coach White constantly was telling us to believe, and that we are good enough to be on this stage. I think the more we started believing it, the more wins we got.”
Taylor says UMHB is somewhere she would want to be, even if she wasn’t playing tennis for The Cru. The strength of the Christ-centered community and ability to pursue mechanical engineering in the classroom appealed to her from the beginning, and the opportunity to play tennis for a high-achieving program has only enhanced the experience. Now she looks to play a role in bringing back an NCAA Tournament victory to campus for the first time in program history, which would undoubtedly make what is already a historic year all the more memorable.
Video coverage of Thursday’s match can be found on NCAA.com, and live stats can be found here. The Cru is facing Whitman for only the second time in program history, with the two West Region squads having last met in Belton on March 20, 2012.
