They'll never drive by a Lifetime Fitness without smiling ever again.
 
Buoyed by the strong performances of the team at the regional tournament the month before, the Grand Canyon University Club Pickleball team posted its first-ever top-5 performances at the Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating Collegiate Pickleball National Championships at Lifetime Fitness in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. The Lopes' top team not only placed 4^th in the main bracket results, but GCU's 2^nd team finished 5^th (out of 28 teams) in the 2^nd Team bracket as well. It was the best showing the Lopes have ever had at the event, which was in its 4^th year of existence and its second year being hosted in the Atlanta area.
 
While the Lopes have steadily improved throughout their three years of competition in the DUPR competitions, they knew that even one top-5 finish among the 64-team field would be a major accomplishment. Once the team of Artur Fonseca, Xavier NcCorchuck, Aly Evanson and Leanna Ching breezed through its three pool play matches, they caught fire in single-elimination play, winning in the rounds of 32 and 16 and then the quarterfinals en route to a 7-1 record and the 4^th-place finish.
 
While that was happening, the Lopes' Team 2 - Carter Eldridge, Ethan Mahony, Hannah Eldridge and Mary Layne Holloway – also went 3-for-3 in pool play of the 2^nd Team bracket. The Lopes then won in the round of 32 and round of 16, winning five of their six overall matches to reach a top 5 standing of their own.
 
The teams were bolstered by the Lopes' performance in the Men's Doubles Challenger Bracket, an 80-team field that broke them into groups of eight – dependent on their skill levels. The Lopes excelled in two of the eight groups, with their team of Samuel Tomich and Daniel Price winning the title in Group #4. Their two pairings in Group #1, Eli Wilson and Tanner Crandall, as well as Justin Brunner and Adam Jones took it one step further, vanquishing each team's competition to wind up pitted against each other in the final, with Wilson/Crandall outlasting Brunner/Jones to win the title.
 
"To be honest, we don't come into these national tournaments with any expectations - since there are just so many talented schools out there - but once we went undefeated in pool play and saw our path in the playoffs, we knew we could make a deep run," said Carter Eldridge. "This kind of finish was huge for the program's growth. It not only grants us exposure, but it also does wonders for our confidence going forward. A finish like this reminds us that we can compete with the best of the best, and I hope we can continue to get results like this for years to come."
 
Each of the winning teams won $500 for the program, while the 4^th-place finish overall netted the Lopes' program $2500.