The Northwestern State tennis team had nearly its entire roster on the 2026 Southland Conference Women’s Tennis All-Academic Team announced on Monday.
Five Lady Demons — Sofi Garcia, Maria Farina, Honoka Umeda, Martina Acebedo Bonocore, and Lija Mumlek — all earned their first conference all-academic honors.
To be considered for selection, a student-athlete must have a minimum 3.25 cumulative GPA.
Garcia (computer information systems, 3.54) earned second-team all-Southland honors this season in both singles and doubles. Earning her singles honor at the No. 5 spot and her doubles selection at the No. 1 spot, alongside fellow academic all-conference selection Umeda.
Garcia won the first five matches of the season in her singles position and finished the year going 8-1 in conference play. She had an impressive 11-1 mark overall in singles this year, the second most wins on the team with her only loss coming at Southeastern.
Umeda (psychology, 3.96) won seven singles matches with a 5-4 mark in conference play, and seven of her nine doubles wins came alongside Garcia. All six of her conference doubles wins was in the pairing with Garcia. She won back-to-back singles matches in conference play on two different occasions, including consecutive road wins at A&M-Corpus Christi and UTRGV.
Umeda was also a College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District selection.
Farina (industrial engineering technology, 3.97) also won seven singles matches on the year and had a 5-3 mark in conference play. She won four straight singles matches against Southland opponents to close the month of March, including a three-set win against eventual regular-season champion McNeese.
NSU also had a pair of freshmen earn academic all-conference honors, including SLC Freshman of the Year Acebedo (health and exercise science, 4.0).
Her team-leading 13-2 overall record in singles, including an 8-1 mark in conference, earned her the first freshman superlative award for NSU since 2012. She also picked up second-team all-conference honors at No. 4 singles and No. 3 doubles.
Fellow freshman Mumlek (applied microbiology, 4.0), had a solid rookie campaign for the Demons picking up three wins in doubles this year, earning two of those with Garcia.