Charlotte, North Carolina, is a beautiful and growing area and Queens University of Charlotte captures both of those elements.

Last summer, Queens was reclassified as Division 1 for all sports by the NCAA as it continues to grow and evolve.

Mallory Conner discovered both the area and the university as she scouted for a place to continue her education and her tennis career. Actually, the school came on to her radar late in the process but impressed her immediately.

“It was amazing because when we went down, they kind of caught my attention. I was interested in other schools that I had checked out during the process, but everything fell into place there for me,” said Conner, who reached the District 11 Class 2 A final for three straight seasons this year.

“It was beautiful down there and the coach, the program, everything just felt like a perfect fit for me.”

For some, the fact that Charlotte is about a nine-hour drive would be a problem. Conner, though, was looking to be outside of the area and have the chance to experience being on her own. The majority of schools she had looked at were three to five hours away, so Queens was a big jump from that level, but considering it was a perfect fit, the added time was no problem.

As a student at Northwestern, Conner didn’t even have a tennis team to be a member of, so she had to play in a number of USTA tournaments and play independently in order to make her mark and earn the trips — and success — that she had in high school tennis. Conner did have the team experience as a competitor in both basketball and track.

“It was a unique experience to not have a team to compete with, but being in basketball and track gave me the chance to experience being part of a team and a community. This whole community is great, and I am so glad that I got to experience that as part of a team,” said Conner.

In addition to her trips to the District 11 finals in each of the past three seasons, Conner has also taken the Times News Girls Tennis Player of the Year award for three straight seasons. Her academic and athletic opportunities at Northwestern Lehigh have helped prepare her for what is going to be coming at her in the fall.

“I enjoyed competing here at Northwestern Lehigh. I made a lot of great friends through school, and being a part of the track team and basketball team, and we had a lot of fun times together,” said Conner. “At the same time, I’m really excited about going to college and having a lot of new experiences and face the academic and athletic challenges. I’m really glad that things came together for me to go to Queens.”

Things truly fell into place well for Conner when she made the trip to Charlotte, even though the school was a late entrant in her decision process. Of course, her ideal school had to have a tennis program, which Queens has. Now, she will also get to play at the Division 1 level and face strong competition.

Academically, Conner was looking to major in business and finance, and Queens was able to check that off her list as well. The McColl School of Business at Queens ranks in the top 15% of business and finance programs nationwide. That gave her the strong athletic and academic opportunities that she was looking for in her next phase.

“It was great how everything just came together. The school has everything that I wanted and the area is beautiful, so it made the decision pretty easy,” said Conner. “The more I found out about the school and the area, the better it was for me and I knew it was a great fit.”