FAU wins third straight college pickleball title at the biggest Super Regional yet

Florida Atlantic University has won three college pickleball events in a row, and the latest came against the biggest field the College Pickleball Tour has ever put together for a Super Regional. The Owls beat NC State 3-0 in the final of the NC Super Regional on October 18 in Wilson, North Carolina, and now head toward the College World Championship in Texas as the team everyone else has to beat.

A record field in Wilson

The NC Super Regional ran October 17 and 18 at the City of Wilson Pickleball Facility. DUPR, which lists the tour with its events, reported 330 players from 29 schools in 66 MLP-format teams, plus 34 teams in a challenger bracket. That made it the largest Super Regional in College Pickleball Tour history, with the most schools ever at one, and the fifth-largest event the tour has run. A second recap, from CollegiatePB, lists 28 schools in the team bracket, a small difference that probably comes from how each outlet counted entries. Both agree on 66 teams.

The format is the MLP-style team match. Each school's team plays women's doubles, men's doubles and two mixed doubles games, and a DreamBreaker is used to settle a tie if one is needed. Every match counts toward players' DUPR ratings.

Round of 32 upsets

With that many teams, early rounds were rough on higher seeds. DUPR reports that No. 23 FSU 3 beat No. 10 UCF 2, 3-1, in an all-Florida match, and that hometown No. 20 ECU 1 beat No. 13 CCU 1, also 3-1. In a Virginia matchup, No. 11 UVA 1 swept No. 6 Liberty 1, 3-0.

NC State knocks out the top seed

The surprise of the semifinals was No. 5 NC State 1 beating No. 1 Alabama 1, 3-1. On the other side of the bracket, FAU beat UVA 3-0. That set up a final between the strongest team in North Carolina and the team DUPR called "the hottest team in college pickleball."

FAU's final

The final was not close. According to CollegiatePB, FAU 1 won women's doubles 21-13, men's doubles 21-14 and the first mixed doubles game 22-20, which ended it at 3-0. No score was recorded for the second mixed game in the livestream summary, and no DreamBreaker was needed. The FAU roster for the event was Gianna Jarman, Alec LaMacchio, Isabella Nelson and DJ Zeiler. NC State's runners-up were Chase Brautman, Lina LaVigne, Siddharth Patil and Paige Seibert.

For NC State the result had an echo. At last year's NC Super Regional, the Wolfpack lost 0-3 to Miami (FL) in the final. This year a different Florida school gave them the same score.

Three in a row

FAU's winning streak is the story of the fall. The Owls have now won the Georgia Super Regional, The Nationals and the NC Super Regional, one after another. DUPR notes that each of those events had at least 40 other teams in the field, which is the reason it describes three straight wins as something in "a category of its own right now."

The challenger bracket

The challenger bracket also had a standout. Marco Ortiz and Elijah Akhundjanov of UNF won it on Saturday night, finishing 8-0 across the bracket.

What comes next

The fall schedule keeps moving. The Ohio Super Regional is October 24 and 25 at Match Point Pickleball in Columbus, Ohio. After that, teams travel to the College World Championship at Brookhaven Country Club in Farmers Branch, Texas, October 30 through November 1. Brookhaven is the same venue where the PPA's Opendoor Pickleball World Championships will hold the celebrity showdown on November 5, so the college event kicks off a busy few weeks at the club.

The question DUPR poses is whether anyone can stop FAU. The tour's results so far give a few reasons to think it is possible. Every Super Regional has produced upsets in the early rounds, NC State beat the top seed, and a single mixed doubles game at 22-20 in the final shows that even a 3-0 scoreline can hide a close game.

Why college pickleball is worth following

College pickleball has grown quickly as a competitive path for players who are not yet pros. The size of the Wilson field, with 29 schools in one weekend across the Southeast, shows how many programs now field teams. It also shows how much of the field is made up of schools from Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and neighboring states, which gives the Super Regionals a strong regional character.

For fans, the practical points are simple. Results feed DUPR ratings, the tour posts brackets and livestream summaries, and the next two stops, in Columbus and Farmers Branch, are the places to watch whether FAU's run continues.

Sources checked 20 Oct 2026.