Coastal Carolina women’s tennis team full of motivation in 2016

Coastal Carolina has some extra motivation this season.

After falling to Charleston Southern in the Big South women’s tennis championship match last year, the Chanticleers have kept that loss in the back of their minds and are using it as a catalyst in a hunt for one last title before moving to the Sun Belt Conference next season.

“To come so close – being regular-season champions, then losing in the finals and coming up short [hurt] …” CCU tennis coach Catherine Hewitt said. “Good grief, it’s our last year in the Big South so we’re super hungry to hopefully go out with a bang. But it [happens] one match at a time.”

No. 1 singles player Libby Scott also has high hopes since she won’t be going with the Chanticleers in their move to the Sun Belt as one of the squad’s two seniors.

“We’d love to win the conference tournament,” said Scott, a Dunedin, New Zealand native. “That would be like the icing on the cake.”

Coastal sits at 5-3 on the season. After a 7-0 loss to then-No. 28-ranked South Carolina in the season opener, the Chanticleers went on a four-match winning streak.

“They are a top-ranked school, so it was difficult playing them,” Scott said of the Gamecocks. “But we learned a lot from that and I definitely think it helped us win over our next few matches. We’ve learned a lot from all our losses and matches, and we just want to keep doing better.”

Following the winning streak, the Chanticleers dropped two straight against against Furman and College of Charleston before rebounding with a win over Wofford over the weekend.

“We have to get more consistent, we have to get a little hungrier and grittier,” Hewitt said.

It would help to follow Scott’s lead. Her on-court presence is oft-intimidating and the Chants have frequently relied on her to get it done.

“For a person like Libby, you couldn’t ask for any more. Good gosh, she’s our leader and every match we have with Libby is great. We want to absorb that; we don’t ever want to give her up. We’d have her for another year if we could,” Hewitt said with a chuckle. “She brings a lot of knowledge to the program, she knows what each program plays like, she knows what to expect and she always has a good court presence.”

Even early in her career, Scott showed Hewitt and her teammates that she has the capability to lead and push them on and off the court.

“For her to be an example for her teammates, we obviously look for that and she does a great job,” Hewitt said. “If we could have eight Libbys, we’d take them.”

Scott said she constantly talks with her teammates about their goals and doesn’t have any reason to believe they can’t accomplish them.

“It’s crazy being a senior and seeing how the team has changed over the years. This is it, though,” Scott said. “I’m excited; we have a great group of girls and we can do great things.”

As far as the team’s chemistry?

“It’s great,” Scott said. “We’re all best friends and all get along really well. That helps on the court, too.”

Hewitt said she knows that it’s a long race to the top, but the Chanticleers are in it for the long haul.

“We know what we have to do; we have adjustments we need to make,” Hewitt said. “… We’re taking it one match at a time and keep working.”

This story was originally published February 23, 2016 at 6:26 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina women’s tennis team full of motivation in 2016."