2023 Top NCAA D-III Women's Classes (2024)

Recruiting Feature

2023 Top NCAA D-III Women's Classes

by TennisRecruiting.net, 23 June 2023

Over the past few weeks, TennisRecruiting.net and Inspiration Academy have been looking at the Class of 2023 - publishing recruiting class ranking lists for different groups of schools. Today, we wrap up our rankings with a look at the Top 25 recruiting classes in D-III women’s college tennis.

Top 25 NCAA Women’s Division III Recruiting Classes

TennisRecruiting.net and Inspiration Academy are excited to present the Top 25 NCAA Division III Women's Recruiting Classes for 2023.

We enlisted the help of a number of NCAA Division III enthusiasts, coaches, and insiders to aid in the rankings. While we do not publish a list of our helpers, we absolutely appreciate their assistance. And as with all of our lists, these rankings do not consider incoming transfer students or players who were on college rosters in 2022-23.

Without further ado ...here are your Top 25:

Notes

The table above lists all recruits as of May 21, 2023. In addition to the Star Rating, we display the highest TRN and ITF junior rankings - as well as the best UTR and World Tennis Number (WTN) ratings - for the 6-month period prior to the voting. For international players we display the TRN ranking they would hold if eligible.

Also Receiving Consideration

We reviewed the resumes for more than 50 teams for these rankings. Teams that received strong consideration and almost made our list are (alphabetically) as follows: Bates, Carleton, Colorado College, Denison, Hamilton, St. Lawrence

All Maroon, All The Time

Is it deja vu all over again? Earlier this week, we were talking about University of Chicago Head Coach Jay Tee and his men’s recruiting class at No. 1. Today, Coach Tee is back in the headlines for the Maroon Women. We are excited to tab Chicago’s recruiting class with the No. 1 ranking in our NCAA Division III Women’s Tennis Top 25 Recruiting Class Rankings.

The Chicago recruiting class consists of a pair of highly-ranked seniors - both Top 100 in their class, and both with UTR ratings above 9.0. 5-Star senior Sarena Biria of Leawood, Kansas competed in three USTA National Championships in 2022-23, winning singles matches at the USTA Clay Court, Hard Court, and Winter Nationals. Fellow recruit Oliwia Mikos, who was a mainstay in the Top 50 of the TRN rankings for the Class of 2023 before ceasing play in junior tournaments last summer, will make the half-hour journey from nearby Willowbrook to Chicago.

This pair of recruits should provide depth for a relatively young Chicago squad that returns most of the lineup that reached the finals of the 2023 NCAA D-III Team Championships last month.

Coach Tee is excited to get these recruits to campus.

“We're thrilled to welcome Oliwia, Sarena, and Nika to our team in 2023,” said Tee. “They're excited to be a part of our program - and we can't wait to welcome them. What stands out most about this class, other than their immense talent, is that all three are fantastic people who are going to add so much as teammates. They took notice of what we've built the last several years and are eager to help us achieve our ultimate goal of taking the last step and capturing an NCAA Championship for The University of Chicago.”

High Five

Checking in at No. 2 on our list is the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays.

Hopkins Head Coach Dan Pollock has a deep, 6-woman class coming to Baltimore this fall - headlined by Top 100 senior Sophia Kim of Hinsdale, Ill. Kim will be joined by fellow 4-Star seniors Sydney Langer (Short Hills, N.J.), Lia Melvin (Joppa, Md.), Samantha Wang (Arcadia, Calif.), and Aubrey Zhou (Oceanside, Calif.) - as well as Audrey Wijono of Singapore.

In the No. 3 spot are the MIT Engineers, who reached the third round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Head Coach Carol Matsuzaki has a nice mix of seven US and international players arriving in September for the 2023-24 campaign.

Rounding out our Top 5 are the Wesleyan Cardinals and CMS Athenas in the No. 4 and 5 positions, respectively.

Conference Call

The 25 teams in our rankings are spread across nine different conferences, with the University Athletic Association leading the way in terms of both strength and depth. 6 of the 8 teams in UAA appear on this list, with 5 of them - 5! - among the Top 10.

Top-ranked Chicago is joined in our D-III recruiting class rankings by fellow UAA and Top 10 classes from the Emory Eagles (No. 6), Brandeis Judges (7), Wash U Bears (8), and Carnegie Mellon Tartans (10). Also representing the UAA in our rankings are the NYU Violets (18).

Other notable conferences are the NESCAC with 5 ranked classes, the SCIAC with 4, and NEWMAC with 3.

Quick Hits

Scattershooting through the rankings …

• Wealth in the Commonwealth - 14 states are represented in our rankings, and Massachusetts leads the way with 5 ranked classes. MIT (No. 3) and Brandeis (7) join the Babson Beavers (9), Wellesley Blue (16) and Tufts Jumbos (22) in the rankings. Other states with more than two ranked classes are California and New York with 4 and 3 ranked classes, respectively.
• Back Again - 18 of the 25 programs featured in these 2023 rankings also had a ranked class in 2022.
• Welcome Back - The University of Redlands hired Peter Yellico as head coach in 2022, and Yellico quickly made some noise on the recruiting trail. At No. 11 on our list, this is the first ranked class for Redlands since 2016. The 7-year hiatus is the longest for any program in the rankings.
• Notable Streaks - Two years in a row? How about 10 or more? Seven programs have appeared in our rankings at least 10 straight years - dating back to 2014 or even earlier. MIT (No. 3), CMS (5), Emory (6), Wash U (8), Carnegie Mellon (10), Bowdoin (14), and Tufts (11) are all in the midst of long streaks.
• Perfect Attendance - Five programs have appeared in every list we have published since we started ranking D-III classes in 2010. Congratulations to MIT, CMS, Emory, Wash U, and Bowdoin on their remarkable consistency.
• New Kids - Stephen Perkins was hired as Head Coach of the Occidental Tigers in 2022, and he wasted no time making an impact. At No. 20 on our list, 2023 marks the first ranked class in program history. Congratulations to Coach Perkins and his staff!
• Best Ever - In addition to Occidental, two other programs have historic recruiting classes. The Brandeis Judges (No. 7) and Trinity Tigers (13) have their highest-ranked recruiting classes in program history here in 2023.

Recruiting Class Ranking Wrap

We hope you have enjoyed these recruiting class rankings as much as we have enjoyed producing them. Thanks to all of our contributors who thoughtfully submitted their ideas and lists[[ as well as to SPONSOR for their support./.]] Make sure to check out all of our lists from our homepage.

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