Notable Catamount Awards during Coach Beaver’s tenure (2019 - Pres.):
2025 Southern Conference Player of the Year: Jade Groen (First in Program History)
2025 ITA Player to Watch: Jade Groen
2020 ITA Cissie Leary Sportsmanship Award: Jordan Strickland
2023 Southern Conference Freshman of the Year: Isabella Sambola
2022 Southern Conference Sportsmanship Award: Jordyn King
2019 Southern Conference Sportsmanship Award: Jordan Strickland
First Team All-SoCon Honorees: Jade Groen (2025), Isabella Sambola (2025), Kata Foldeak (2021)
First Team All-SoCon Doubles: Jade Groen & Chloe Schwarz (2025)
Second Team All-SoCon: Jade Groen (2024), Jordan Strickland (2019)
Second Team All-SoCon Doubles: Jade Groen & Andrea Redondo (2023), Julia Pezzuco & Jacy Smith (2021)
All-Freshman Team: Hokualohi Lui (2025), Jade Groen (2023), Isabella Sambola (2023), Leilany Ipunesso (2023), Miray Konar (2022), Kata Foldeak (2021), Jacy Smith (2019)
Academic Honors:
35 SoCon Honor Roll members | 14 Commissioner’s Medal Recipients | 22 SoCon Spring All-Academic Team Honorees | 5 CSC Academic All-District Honorees | 44 ITA Scholar-Athlete Honors
Coach Beaver enters his eighth season with the Catamount tennis program, seeing steady improvement in each of his seasons at the helm.
The 2025 spring season was the best by a Catamount tennis team in program history, recording a single-season record 15 wins and claiming the first postseason victory in the 45-year history of the team with a 4-0 win over Mercer in the Southern Conference Tournament.
As a team, the 2025 Catamounts earned their highest placement in the Southern Conference Tournament in program history, heading into postseason play as the fourth seed after picking up four wins in conference play during the regular season. The Catamounts also picked up eight consecutive wins in the 2025 season, tying the longest win streak record in program history, which was set in the 2024 season. However, the 2025 team was the first to do so against all NCAA Division I competition, picking up wins against FDU (5-2), Lamar (4-0), Fairfield (6-1), NC A&T (6-1), Samford (6-1), UNC Greensboro (6-1), Chattanooga (5-2), and Mercer (5-2).
Under Beaver’s direction, Jade Groen set program records in nearly every possible measurement in the 2025 season, posting an undefeated 7-0 singles record in conference play and rolling to an outstanding 17-2 record overall. Additionally, Groen set career records in singles wins at 46 and in doubles wins with 45. Groen was named the Southern Conference Player of the Year for her efforts and was named first-team all-conference singles and first-team all-conference doubles with her primary partner, Chloe Schwarz. The duo posted a 10-5 record, going 5-1 in conference play and picking up a win over the 58th-ranked duo in the country in Furman’s Sara Snyder and Ellie Schulson.
Isabella Sambola earned first-team singles honors as well, posting a career-best mark in solo play with an 11-9 record, going 5-2 in SoCon play. Hokualohi Lui became the first Catamount to earn all-freshman honors since Groen, Sambola, and Leilany Ipunesso did so in 2023. Lui posted a 10-9 mark in her first season in Cullowhee, becoming the first freshman Catamount to record double-digit wins since Groen that same season.
In the spring 2024 season, the Catamounts enjoyed historic success early, stringing together eight victories for a program record win streak. Those eight victories were highlighted by a 4-3 road win over Western Kentucky, a 6-1 home win vs Davidson, a 7-0 road win over Queens, and a 5-2 road win over Gardner-Webb.
Injuries and illness proved to be difficult hurdles following the hot start, but the Catamounts rallied late in the year in impressive fashion as they earned the first road win over Chattanooga in program history. Angela Perez secured the 4-3 victory for the Catamounts with a three-set, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win on the third court.
The Catamounts earned individual accolades in the season as well, as Jade Groen was named the Southern Conference’s women’s tennis player of the month in March after posting a 5-1 singles record and going 7-1 overall in conference play. Groen earned second-team all-SoCon honors for her performance in the season, picking up 15 singles wins and 14 doubles wins.
In the spring of 2023, Beaver directed the Catamounts to a program-record 14 wins during the spring campaign which included an 8-2 mark on WCU’s home courts. The eight home wins marks the most by the Catamounts since the 2017 season.
Western Carolina also earned its first SoCon Freshman of the Year in 2023 as Isabella Sambola claimed the honor as Sambola was one of three joined by Leilany Ipunesso and Jade Groen to earn SoCon All-Freshman team honors. Groen also claimed a SoCon Player of the Week honor. Groen and Andrea Redondo earned second team doubles team honors as well.
For the second time under his direction, Western Carolina women's tennis earned the second-most wins in a season in program history with 12 in 2022. With the tutelage of Beaver, the Catamounts defeated UNCG, in Greensboro, N.C., for just the third time in the two team's 29 meetings. The team also tied for its highest seed in the Southern Conference Championships with a No. 6 seed. Miray Konar earned SoCon All-Freshman honors and Jordyn King was awarded the SoCon Sportsmanship award.
In the challenging times of the 2021 season, playing during a pandemic, Beaver and the Catamount squad ended the season with a 9-9 overall record. He guided Kata Foldeak to a SoCon First Team All-Conference and All-Freshman nod in her first year as a Catamount. The duo of Jacy Smith and Julia Pezzuco, under Beaver's watch, also earned SoCon All-Conference Second Team at No. 1 doubles.
The 2020 season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic but Beaver was able to help lead Strickland to break the career program record for most wins in singles and doubles. Strickland also received national recognition being named the national recipient of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) / Cissie Leary Sportsmanship Award - a first for the Catamount program.
In his first full season as head coach, in 2019, Beaver led the Catamounts to a record of 12-10 just one win shy of tying the school record for most wins in a season in the program's history. Also in his inaugural season, Beaver had two players earn all-conference honors marks the first time in the program’s history a pair of Catamounts were honored, in singles, with post-season accolades. Jordan Strickland and Jacy Smith were each named to the All-Conference Second Team and Smith was also honored on the All-Freshman squad.
Beaver came to Western Carolina from former Southern Conference school Elon University where he spent three seasons, 2015-2018, as an assistant coach and then associate head coach for the Phoenix women’s tennis program.
In the 2018 season Elon, under the direction of Head Coach Elizabeth Anderson and Beaver, the Phoenix reached the semi-finals of the CAA Tournament and placed four on the all-conference team.
While Beaver was an assistant coach at Elon, the team amassed a record of 46-31 and a total of nine Phoenix earned post-season honors. In his first and second year with the team, Elon earned the No. 2 seed in the CAA Tournament.
Prior to Elon, Beaver was an assistant women’s tennis coach at Charleston Southern University from 2013-15 in Charleston, S.C. Beaver was instrumental in the success of the women’s tennis program that won the Big South tournament championship during the 2015 season, earning a bid to the NCAA Women’s Tennis Championships.
The Buccaneers also won two Big South regular-season titles in 2014 and 2015. Beaver coached the Big South Player of the Year for two consecutive seasons. Charleston Southern achieved a national ranking of No. 74 in 2014 with a 35-7 overall match record with Beaver as an assistant.
Beaver has also worked as a tennis professional at the Wild Dunes Tennis Center in Isle of Palms, S.C., as well as a camp counselor for the Tennis Camp at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. and a tennis instructor for the Towpath Tennis Center in Akron, Ohio.
Beaver received his bachelors in Peace and Justice from Nazareth College.
