UNC Club Pickleball makes deep run in DUPR Collegiate National Championship

Under the South Campus Recreation Complex lights, the UNC Club Pickleball team has built more than a championship-caliber program in the last six years. They’ve built a family. 

There is room for everyone on the team. It is the fastest-growing sport in the nation, after all.

The team is at the recreation complex three times a week. Formally, participants are there from 6-8 p.m, but in reality, they are there until the lights go off. 

The club GroupMe consists of nearly 900 members. The chat is mainly used for recreational purposes to coordinate pick-up games. There is a social team, which is made up of 66 members who practice twice a week. Additionally, the competitive team has 46 players who compete in tournaments and attend three scheduled team practices weekly. In early November, the competitive team traveled to Texas for a chance to win a national championship. The club pays for registration fees and members paying out of pocket for plane tickets.

“Playing for four hours, three times a week sounds insane, but when it's all like your best friends, and you all just feel so encouraged by each other, I feel like everyone really wants to show up all the time and actively participate,” UNC Club Pickleball Secretary Emma Horvath said. 

This drive, sense of family and natural talent has taken them to tournaments all over the country, including the DUPR Collegiate National Championship at Brookhaven Country Club in Farmers Branch, Texas from Nov. 1-3. Over half of the competitive team traveled to the event. 

At the tournament UNC had an impressive run, advancing to the Final Four match. However, North Carolina's most notable game was not its last match but instead the one that launched the Tar Heels into the semifinals.  

No. 8 UNC beat No. 1 Utah Valley in the quarterfinal match. Their comeback win was the "talk of the tourney."

The teams traded wins in doubles matches and mixed doubles before it came down to a tiebreaker called the "dreambreaker," where all four team members take turns in singles. With UNC trailing 20-15, All-American Sarah Carpenter stepped up, leading a rally to pull off a 22-20 victory. 

Matthew Nesbitt, Ian Hutter, Faith Ilgner and Carpenter are among the team members responsible for turning the dreambreaker match into a dream maker, sending North Carolina to the semifinals. 

“We've really played incredible,” UNC Pickleball Vice President Mihir Upadhye said. “We have an amazing team. [A couple] of great guys and girls, all at a really high level, some with aspirations of playing at the pro level, some with pro-level wins, actually. So we've really done an amazing job with the team.”

Still, the Tar Heels ultimately fell to No. 2 Utah Tech in both women's doubles and mixed doubles in the semifinal match. Utah Tech went on to win the title. 

Despite this loss, UNC, Virginia and Utah Tech are the only three schools to ever play in a DUPR National Championship game for the past three years. DUPR CEO Jacob Smith calls them the “top dogs."

“Part of the reason, why they've done so well, they have a great fan base,” Smith said. "They're able to travel and bring out a lot of members to these events, which really does help you play better.” 

Horvath agrees.

“We constantly had other schools and other referees telling us that we were the loudest and most spirited team there, and that we just were bringing the most energy on the sidelines,” Horvath said. “And so I think that energy was infectious and showed other teams that we were really, really passioned.

The Tar Heels rented multiple Airbnbs to house the 26 people who traveled to Texas for nationals. As part of the family that's been built through the recreational sport, it was a "hell of a time," according to Upadhye. 

And although UNC fell short, the team will have a chance to go on a redemption tour in April 2025 and make some more memories like those that filled the last one.

@sofiaszostczuk

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