Case Western Reserve University senior Lily McCloskey was named the recipient of the Elite 90 Award for the 2025 NCAA Division III Women's Tennis Championship. McCloskey received the honor prior to her singles match at the NCAA Individual Championships on Saturday morning in Claremont, California.
The Elite 90, an award founded by the NCAA, recognizes the true essence of the student-athlete by honoring the individual who has reached the pinnacle of competition at the national championship level in their sport, while also achieving the highest academic standard among their peers. The Elite 90 is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the site of the finals for each of the NCAA championships.
Eligible student-athletes are sophomores or above academically who have participated in a sport for at least two years with their school. All ties are broken by the number of credits completed.
McCloskey, who received her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering degree last weekend, has a 4.0 cumulative GPA. She is the 11th CWRU student-athlete to win the award since it was first given out during the 2009-10 academic year and the second member of the Spartan women's tennis team. Former student-athlete Hannah Kassaie won the award the last two seasons. During the 2024-25 academic year, three Case Western Reserve student-athletes received the Elite 90 Award, including Ajay Mahenthiran (men's tennis) and Abigail Wilkov (women's swimming and diving). The 14 total honors for CWRU are tied for the seventh-most for any NCAA member institution and are the third-most among Division III schools behind MIT (22) and WashU (19).
A three-time All-American, McCloskey was named to the NCAA Individual Championships for the fourth consecutive year in 2025, receiving an invite to both the singles and doubles national championships. Playing at first singles and first doubles for CWRU, she earned All-University Athletic Association First Team (singles) and All-UAA Second Team (doubles) selections to become the second eight-time All-UAA honoree in program history. McCloskey has gone 15-8 this season in singles play and 21-5 in doubles play. At the end of the regular season, she was ranked 11th in doubles play nationally by the ITA and 39th in singles play. Across her career, she is 56-30 (.651) in singles matches and 84-23 (.785) in doubles matches with her 84 wins the most in program history.
Academically, McCloskey is a two-time CSC Academic All-America First Team selection and was named to the CSC Academic All-District and UAA All-Academic Teams three times in her career. She recently received the 2025 ITA Division III Central Region Arthur Ashe Leadership & Sportsmanship Award and has been inducted into the CWRU Van Horn Society twice.
McCloskey will start competition in the national singles and doubles championships, alongside teammate Katalina Wang in the doubles draw, today in Claremont, California. Singles first and second round action and doubles first round action is scheduled for today, with quarterfinals for both competitions on Sunday, semifinals on Monday, and the national singles and doubles championships on Tuesday.
For more information on the Elite 90 award winners, log on to https://www.ncaa.com/elite-90
