Cowgirls Record Two Flight Titles
Photo by Declan O’Connor with UW Athletics
The University of Wyoming Cowgirl Tennis team has officially kicked off their season at the Jon Messick Invitational in Fort Collins on Sept 18–20. The tournament included four different flights—or subgroups of players within the tournament—of open women’s singles, and two flights of women’s doubles. This season, the Cowgirls returned two All-Mountain West players, upperclassmen Anastasiia Kochelaevskaia and Silver Bijlsma. Head Coach Dean Clower spoke about wanting upperclassmen to set the standard for Cowgirl tennis, which they did in this first tournament.
“I was really pleased with the passion and grit we showed in a lot of matches, which pushed us through for many wins,” said Coach Clower. “Upper classmen like Anastasiia [Kochelaevskaia], Silver [Bijlsma], and Dilnaz [Mashabayeva] showed the freshmen what Cowgirl Tennis is all about,” he explained. “This team has a lot of talent, but talent doesn’t win championships alone, grit does. We have a lot of work to do in many areas, but this was definitely a good start to the season.”
All four flights featured two Cowgirls, with the last flight having three. In Flight A, Bijlsma lost in the semifinals round, going 0–2 against Chaeyule Kang of the Air Force Academy. Kochelaevskaia then won Flight A, one of the two Cowgirl’s tennis victories of the weekend. In doing so, she avenged her teammate and defeated Kang in the finals 2–0, by scores of 6–4 and 6–3. In Flight B, both Cowgirls were defeated in round one. Antonella Taco and Madlena Orlova both fell 0–2 to Chahd Tourkhani and Leyla Tozin of Utah State and Colorado State respectively.
Flight C saw Zlata Nestorova get a bye and advance to the semifinals, where she lost a close match 2–1 to Tayla Wilmot of Utah State. Wilmot won first 6–1, then Nestorova won 6–2, with Wilmot then sealing her win with a 10–4 victory. Eugenia Ceinos fell 0–2 in the first round. In Flight D, the final one for the singles, two Cowgirls advanced to the championship for the team’s second victory of the weekend. Ruby Young lost in her first round, but Ivona Ridan and Dilnaz Mashabayeva both plowed their way through the flight. Because the teammates couldn’t face each other in the championship, they instead flipped opponents and were victorious in the flipped matches.
In Flight A of doubles, UW only saw one team advance to the semifinals. Ceinos and Ridan lost in the semifinals by a score of 6–2. Similarly, in Flight B, Kochelaevskaia and Young lost a close battle, 7–6, in the semifinals to a duo from Utah State. The Cowgirls hope to continue to build off this successful first weekend to be competitive throughout the year.
In 2025, the Cowgirls finished the season 7–14 and 4–5 in Mountain West play. With returning players and a strong group of upperclassmen, the Cowgirls 2026–27 team should be competitive in Mountain West. For their next tournament, the Cowgirls will travel to Colorado Springs for the Bedford Cup, hosted by the Air Force Academy from Sept. 25–27.
