Courtesy of Norfolk State Athletic Communications


NORFOLK, Va. – When the spring sports season was shut down, it marked the end of a decade of Norfolk State athletics. From the fall of 2010 to the spring of 2020, it was a 10-year stretch that saw countless highlights across NSU's 15 total sports. Many of those programs' greatest achievements – since NSU made the jump to NCAA Division I in 1997 – came during this decade.
 
Over the course of these last few weeks, we are going to finish spotlighting those storylines right here on NSUSpartans.com. Each week, we'll choose a different sport(s) and take you down memory lane before we get set to start a new decade of excellence. In addition, head over to our Twitter page (@NSUSpartans) where fans will have the opportunity to vote for what they think is the greatest highlight per sport. At the end, they will also be able to vote for the greatest overall highlight in NSU athletics during the past 10 years.
 
We will finish our double dip of tennis this week by looking at the women's side. We've narrowed it down to four storylines from the past decade that we'll focus on, in no particular order.
 
A.) She played just one season with the Spartans as a graduate transfer, but Naz Karagoz made the most of it in 2019. She was named the MEAC Player of the Year after leading the Spartans to a 4-1 MEAC record. She went 9-1 in dual singles play, won all five of her MEAC matches, and was named MEAC Player of the Week four straight times. She helped the Spartans to the Northern Division crown, as undefeated Morgan State was ineligible for the title that year. She became the first Spartan player to be named the conference's player of the year. Since the 2020 season was cut short due to COVID-19, Karagoz unofficially helped close out the decade on a strong note the year prior for Spartan tennis.
Read more about Karagoz earning the 2019 MEAC Player of the Year award.
 
B.) As mentioned earlier in the week, Spartan men's tennis pulled off a big upset of South Carolina State in 2013. A few years after that, the Spartan women decided it was their turn. On March 1, 2015, Norfolk State took down 10-time defending MEAC champion S.C. State by a 4-2 score. The Bulldogs had won every conference championship since 2005, and they went on to win 12 out of 13 championships from 2005-17. But on that day at ODU's indoor tennis courts, the Spartans got the better of the Bulldogs, winning four of six singles matches to come away with the win. Even more remarkable? S.C. State had lost just one conference match going all the way back to 2007. The Bulldogs were 43-1 during that time before the Spartans pulled off one of the athletics department's biggest upsets of the decade.
Read more about NSU topping S.C. State in 2015.
 
C.) A year later, in 2016, the Spartans accomplished another first since joining the MEAC. That season, with most of the previous year's team back, Norfolk State went a perfect 6-0 in MEAC Northern Division play to capture the regular season crown. The Spartans finished one match ahead of Howard in the standings, and in the process they won their first regular season title in the league. Head coach Worth Richardson was recognized with the program's first MEAC Coach of the Year award as a result. NSU had been close before, finishing second several times when the league used a round-robin format instead of divisions. But the 2016 season marked the first time the program had broken through. It was a significant accomplishment, one repeated in 2019 thanks to Morgan State's ineligibility. But led by two players we'll mention next, the 2016 season was a big step for Norfolk State women's tennis.
Read more about NSU clinching the 2016 regular season title.
 
D.) There were several players who made significant contributions during the decade, but we will highlight two here. Liza Gordeeva and Dajana Cvjetkovic were twice named All-MEAC, just the third and fourth times since 2002 that has happened. Cvjetkovic anchored the No. 1 spot in the lineup all four years from 2015-18, and Gordeeva was either No. 1 or No. 2 in the lineup most of her career as well, the last three while playing with Cvjetkovic. When Gordeeva was named first-team All-MEAC in 2015, it had been 12 years since the last time the program had a first-team honoree. Cvjetkovic, meanwhile, helped the Spartans finish at least .500 or better in the MEAC every year during her career, and of course the duo was a big reason for the 2016 title. Mafalda Lhorca and Andrea Macchiavello were also named All-MEAC during the middle part of the decade, and Marta Gomar earned the MEAC Rookie of the Year award in 2016. But the duo of Gordeeva and Cvjetkovic were big catalysts in the Spartans' rise.
Read more: Gordeeva named first-team All-MEAC | Cvjetkovic named first-team All-MEAC