Coastal Carolina women net fourth win in five games

In the aftermath of any big victory, the primary fear of any coach is the proverbial letdown the following game.

With that mind, there was no way Coastal Carolina women’s basketball coach Jaida Williams was going to allow her team to rest on its laurels after a landmark win at Liberty this past weekend.

“Our goal was to make sure our student-athletes did not ride the roller coaster,” she said. “We didn’t want them to get too high or too low.”

The veteran coach’s method proved beneficial Tuesday night, with the Chanticleers using a strong second half effort to down Presbyterian 60-47 at The HTC Center.

Down 24-19 at halftime, the backcourt tandem of Ced Gibson and Nicole Isaacs took the game over, scoring 14 points apiece to help lead the Coastal Carolina surge.

“We had a pretty good pep talk (from Williams) at halftime, so that pretty much helped,” Gibson said following the game. “All that I wanted to do was be a better leader, and help this team in any way possible.”

Gibson finished with 23 points, while Isaacs had 20.

Early on, it seemed Coastal Carolina would have no trouble disposing of Presbyterian, shooting well from the field en route to a 14-6 lead after the first period.

In the second, however, things began to bog down for the Chants, allowing the opponents from Clinton to gain the upper hand.

“I told (Gibson) we were getting frustrated for no apparent reason,” Williams said. “We just needed to settle in. … We needed to play ‘Coastal basketball,’ and the second quarter was not representative of that.”

The Blue Hose would outscore Coastal 18-5 in the second period, with a large share of the points coming from the free throw line.

“(Presbyterian) had gotten 11 points by way of the free throw line, and 10 more as a result of our turnovers,” the Coastal coach said. “We had given them basically 21 of their 24 points. I felt if we stopped giving them easy points, we’d be in good shape.”

While that was true, it also helped having Gibson and Isaacs leading the way, the pair combining for six 3-pointers in the second half.

As a result, the Chants outscored their counterparts by 18 points in the second half.

“I think it was mainly not focusing on the run they made in the first half, and focusing on what we could on the offensive and defensive ends of the floor,” Isaacs said.

Presbyterian was led in scoring by Taylor Petty with 11 points.

With the victory, Coastal has now four of its past five games, improving to 11-15 overall and 6-11 and Big South play – and more importantly, momentum as the regular season nears its conclusion.

“It’s all about playing with confidence,” Gibson said. “Wins like this serve as much needed momentum, especially as we get closer to time for the conference tournament.”

Instead of running from this fact, Williams decided to confront the issue head-on, wanting to make sure she got her squad’s attention.

This story was originally published February 23, 2016 at 10:10 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina women net fourth win in five games."