Radford Club pickleball qualifies for national tournament in first season

Sean Milshteen made a lofty promise last September.

“I’m going to get us to nationals,” the uber-competitive, business-savvy racquet master said repeatedly to his teammates.

It was a bold stance to take for the Radford University senior, particularly for someone who had never before swung a pickleball paddle in an organized competition. In fairness, however, to his competitors, Milshteen had plenty of experience on hard courts as a Division I tennis player.

Before his final year at Radford University, Milshteen joined the university’s elevated pickleball team and helped lead it to a successful fall 2025 campaign. In late January and early February, he and three teammates, eyeing bigger prizes, entered Radford into the Association of Pickleball Players (APP) Selkirk Collegiate Championship Qualifier Tournaments in Hamilton, New Jersey. A top-four finish there would guarantee the Radford pickleballers a spot in the national championships, March 6-8 in Cape Coral, Florida.

Radford’s squad members liked their chances going in, but the competitive field of teams looked Goliath-like, with larger schools sending multiple teams to compete. Radford sent only one, comprising the club’s top four players.

“We were definitely the underdog at the tournament and every tournament we’ve played in this year,” said Milshteen, a business management major from Kibbutz Sde Yoav, Israel, who is a marketing intern for the university’s club sports program.

Things got off to a sluggish start for the foursome, beginning with a seven-hour drive in a rented Honda Odyssey on snow-covered roads here and there from Radford to their hotel in New Jersey. The Friday evening drive was “mentally exhausting,” said Milshteen, the pickleball club president, “because I wasn’t just driving myself; I was driving the whole team.”

That stress and feeling of responsibility led to a bad night of sleep, not ideal before taking to the courts the following morning. “It wasn’t the best feeling for me playing,” Milshteen recalled days later. “I played consistent and I played well, but I really didn’t shine. My roommate, Tom [Saporta], played well, and he gave us some really big wins.”

Over the two-day competition, Radford’s men’s team, Milshteen and Saporta, scored wins over the University of Maine 1 – that’s the school’s No. 1 team – University of Connecticut 3 and Cornell 1. The Highlanders women’s team, made up of Charity Bradford and Julia Slivka, shuffled, lunged and paddled their way to victories over Maine 1, Connecticut 3 and Cornell 1. Saporta and Bradford earned mixed doubles wins, too.

On Sunday, playing off a better night’s sleep following the success of day 1, the team earned a tournament quarterfinal win – “that was very exciting,” Milshteen said – and were one victory away from qualifying for the national tournament. 

Radford’s women’s team of Bradford and Slivka next faced one of the tournament’s top seeds, the University of Iowa. In a tense match with a trip to sunny Florida on the line, the Highlanders stunned the Hawkeyes for the victory, securing their place in the collegiate championships. 

“It was a really tough match,” Milshteen recalled, having watched the competition near the court. “Their team [Iowa] was really strong, but our team played better. And then, we were like, ‘Wow, we did it. We’re going to the championships.’”

Radford finished fourth overall in New Jersey, behind the University of Delaware and the University of Virginia’s No. 1 and No. 3 teams. 

“Obviously, it went super well. We played together great,” said Bradford, a senior nursing major from Radford, Virginia, who, like Milshteen, began playing organized pickleball last fall. “It was really great because all four of us love playing, regardless, but we’re also all really competitive. So, when we win, it’s even better.

“It’s fun just being able to play at Radford,” she continued before pausing and revealing her competitive temperament. “But I never play just for fun!”

Despite Milshteen’s promise at the beginning of the season, qualifying for the national collegiate championships was still a small surprise, particularly for the first year of the program at elevated club status.

“Qualifying is a really big deal because not many people expected us to qualify, let alone be a decent team this year,” Bradford said. “It’s not that we weren’t expecting to get a bid, but it was a bit of a surprise to us, too.”

In the fall of 2025, Radford University established the Club Sports Federation to support elevated club sports that align with the strategic initiatives of the university. Pickleball, along with women’s flag football, men’s rugby, cheer, and skeet and trap, were the club sports integrated into the federation.

Once the federation and elevated club pickleball took shape, Milshteen was determined to make it a success in its inaugural season.

“I gave us high expectations,” he recalled of his late summer proclamation. “I wanted to get us to nationals, and we played well together and found a way to get there.”