After spending a year as an assistant coach, Ewa Bogusz was elevated to head coach of the program in September 2018 and has led the Lumberjacks to one of their most successful stretches in program history.
In her three complete seasons with the program, she has won Big Sky Coach of the Year twice in addition to winning the conference tournament three times to earn berths in the NCAA Tournament in 2019, 2021 and 2022.
During her first season at the helm of the Lumberjacks, Bogusz guided NAU to a Big Sky regular season title and tournament championship. After being prevented from defending their title due to the cancellation of the 2020 season, the Lumberjacks repeated the feat in 2021 with a Big Sky South Division crown and the tournament championship.
NAU finished the 2018-19 season with a 15-9 overall record, including a 9-1 run in conference play. After a 5-3 record during the abbreviated 2019-20 season, the Lumberjacks finished the 2020-21 with a 14-5 record and a perfect 3-0 record in the Big Sky.
The NCAA Tournament berth in 2019 snapped a 20-year drought, with the team putting together an 11-match win streak to sweep the conference championship. NAU put together a similar run in 2021, winning six straight matches leading into the Big Sky Tournament before adding a pair of victories to claim the title. Bogusz has now led the program to three of its four NCAA berths in program history as well as three of their six tournament titles.
Completing a three-peat of the Big Sky Conference Tournament championship in 2022, Bogusz led the Lumberjacks to a 12-8 record, including a 7-1 mark in the Big Sky. Finishing 5-0 in Flagstaff, the Lumberjacks extended their home win streak to 23 straight matches and 31 consecutive home victories against conference opponents.
In the three seasons the Big Sky has awarded postseason honors, Bogusz has seen her players win the Big Sky Most Valuable Player honor while she earned coach of the year twice. Following the 2018-19 season, Chiara Tomasetti headlined five all-conference performers to become the third Lumberjack to win MVP. To cap off the 2020-21 season, freshman Gina Dittmann also won the award in addition to earning Big Sky Freshman of the Year, the first player to sweep the awards in the same season. Dittmann repeated as the Big Sky Conference MVP in the 2021-22 season.
Tomasetti’s record-breaking 2018-19 campaign started with her becoming the first Lumberjack to win the ITA Mountain Regional Championship, which she repeated during the 2019-20 season. Tomasetti's program record 21-2 mark in the spring of 2019 also earned her a unanimous selection to the All-Big Sky First Team.
Bogusz also coached Emilie Haakansson, Hanneke Lodewijks and Adrianna Sosnowska to all-conference honors in singles in 2019. Lodewijks, who also was named NAU's Female Golden Eagle Scholar Athlete of the Year, and Ellie Millard were voted to the All-Big Sky First Team in doubles.
In 2020-21, Dittmann earned All-Big Sky First Team honors in singles, alongside Mimi Bland and Millard, while also landing All-Big Sky Honorable Mention honors in doubles with Elinor Beazley. Millard and Bland also earned All-Big Sky First Team honors in doubles while freshman Ava Neyestani landed All-Big Sky Second Team honors in singles.
In addition to Dittmann's MVP in 2021-22, the sophomore also earned All-Big Sky First Team honors in singles and doubles with Neyestani. Mimi Bland and Annabel Davis also earned All-Big Sky First Team honors in doubles while Sofia Markova was named All-Big Sky First Team in singles. Bland added All-Big Sky Second Team honors in singles whith Neyestani named Honorable Mention.
During her only year as an assistant, Bogusz was named the ITA Mountain Region Assistant Coach of the Year after helping coach the Lumberjacks to their third straight Big Sky regular season championship in the spring of 2018. Four players - Lodewijks, Tomasetti, Millard and Madi Moore - earned All-Big Sky recognition as the Lumberjacks went 19-4 overall and a perfect 11-0 in the Big Sky Conference. The 19 wins were one shy of the school record set in 1999.
Prior to NAU, Bogusz had spent five years as an assistant coach at the University of Wyoming.
Bogusz graduated from the University of Tulsa where she competed as a collegiate athlete for four years. As a member of the Golden Hurricane women’s tennis program, Bogusz recorded nearly 90 singles wins and 93 doubles wins, the second-most doubles wins in school history when she graduated.
In addition, Bogusz left Tulsa with the fourth-most combined victories at 181 and the sixth-most singles victories. She ended her career No. 46 in ITA’s doubles rankings. Her accolades as an athlete didn't stop there as she won Conference USA Championships in each of her last three years and was also a part of three teams that advanced to the NCAA Second Round.
Bogusz, originally from Torun, Poland received her Bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science in 2012 and has been coaching ever since. As an assistant coach at Wyoming, she helped the team place as runner-ups to the Mountain West Conference Championship. She also helped coach doubles pair Simona Synkova and Veronica Popovici to the All-American Championship quarterfinals in 2012.
