Coastal Carolina women’s tennis eager to open first season as Sun Belt Conference member

Coastal Carolina is raring to go.

The Chanticleers women’s tennis team opens its first season as a member of the Sun Belt Conference on Saturday with a 9 a.m. home meeting against Furman at Stevens Tennis Complex in Conway, and coach Catherine Hewitt is hoping to build off the success the program enjoyed as a member of the Big South Conference the last few years.

“We’re jacked up. We got Furman coming in; they’ve put together a really impressive team so it should be a great match,” said Hewitt, who has led CCU to an 80-36 record over the past five seasons. “We love playing at our home court and we’ve had a pretty successful run here the past few seasons; hopefully we can continue that in 2017.”

Coming off an 18-7 season that included a 7-2 mark in conference play, the Chants advanced to the semifinals of the Big South Championship before falling to second-seeded Winthrop in their final season in the Big South.

Libby Scott – Coastal Carolina’s No. 1 singles player last season – and Cari Berry graduated, but five student-athletes return from last season including seniors Romane Delay and Marie Babayan, and juniors Natalie Wall, Brooke Campbell and Sara Bondar.

Also, four incoming freshmen (Rylie Cox, Maria Khomchenko, Anca Rusu and Alexa Tiefel) are expected to help the team this year, and Hewitt was impressed with their play during the fall season.

Hewitt was especially pleased with the play of Cox, the team’s No. 1 singles player going forward. But without a familiarity of the teams they will be seeing, it’s hard for Hewitt and Co. to know exactly what’s in store.

“We had a really good fall season; all of our freshman are really hard workers. Of course, all the returners know how the program goes and what to expect,” she said. “But nice surprise with Rylie Cox, she stepped up and has been very successful in the No. 1 spot – not losing very many matches at all, at a high level in the fall and has some great wins already.

“… There are bright spots with the young girls for sure and I think we have the talent, but we’re kind of going into the unknown factor with the Sun Belt. Don’t know what to expect.”

Nonetheless, the Chants have set their goals high for this season.

“Obviously we’d love to get to the NCAA Tournament and we’d probably need an automatic bid to do that,” Hewitt said. “I think we can make a pretty good run at it and that’s the goal, also just to come together as a team on a daily basis. We just need to genuinely do good for each other and everyone around us and be nice people.”

Hewitt said that has been a key in the team’s success during her tenure, and also a factor in the Chants’ recruiting as they seek out student-athletes that won’t bring drama to the program.

“One thing we really stress is the people we recruit we try to make sure we recruit good girls, no drama queens – people that are generally going to be nice and good teammates. Usually if you leave the drama out of it with the team, you’re going to be pretty successful,” she said. “So, just caring about each other, being compassionate toward one another and buying into the whole team aspect is huge. Playing for something bigger than yourself has really worked for us the past few years. They enjoy what they do out here and when you enjoy it, you usually have a pretty good result.”

This story was originally published January 20, 2017 at 6:28 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina women’s tennis eager to open first season as Sun Belt Conference member."