Rosewell reflects on another successful tennis season

By Morgan Guyer

Both the Men’s and Women’s Tennis Teams at Northwest have established themselves as two of the top teams in Division II over the years. That is in large part to Head Coach Mark “Rosey” Rosewell, who will be coming up on 40 years at the helm.

The men’s team reached their 23rd NCAA Tournament in program history in May, while the women reached their 20th. The men were able to get a win over Southeastern Oklahoma State in the first round before falling to Cameron in Orlando, FL to finish the season 15-7. The women fell in their first round game against Missouri Western to wrap up their season at 18-5. For Rosewell, it was another successful season in charge of the two teams.

“It was an outstanding season. Both teams were undefeated in conference and the region. We were the number one seeds in the regional tournament and hosted here and the guys were able to advance on, so it was very good,” Rosewell said.

Rosewell is happy that the tennis programs have had such success, even before he was at Northwest.

“Our tennis programs have been really good for about 50 years. We’ve won a lot of championships and have gotten high national rankings. It’s been pretty good,” Rosewell said.

Throughout his time as head coach, Rosewell has led the teams to a combined 29 MIAA regular season championships, and nine MIAA tournament championships. He holds a career record of 1,226-600, and is the second MIAA coach in any sport to reach 1,000 wins, and he just received his 29th MIAA Coach of the Year award in 2023. Even with all of those accolades, he is happy being in Maryville and on the Northwest campus.

“I’m from Missouri originally, so this is pretty much home. I’ve seen the school grow tremendously in athletics and academics, I’ve seen a lot of changes for the better,” Rosewell said.

Looking forward to next season, Rosewell says the men are returning a good set of players but will still need to find some to fill some gaps, while the women will be losing some top players to graduation.

The tennis teams have welcomed numerous international students from all over the world throughout the years, which is something that Rosewell cherishes.

“We’ve had a lot of international players, and I’ve gotten to meet people from all over the world. I think that’s really, really neat as far as bringing in international culture and flavor to Northwest,” Rosewell said.