Laura Ring and the Cougars will try to put their best foot forward when they travel to Tulsa, Okla., for the Conference USA Championships this weekend. | Tony Nguyen/The Daily Cougar
After having Sunday’s season finale against Conference-USA rival UAB cut short due to rain, the Cougars will now head to Tulsa to take on East Carolina in the first round of the C-USA tournament.
Head coach John Severance was pleased with the team’s performance even though neither team picked up the victory.
“It was encouraging today that during the start of the doubles matches we were controlling the play and that hasn’t happened in a while,” Severance said in a press release. “I think our girls feel a little better after today since they had a chance to beat UAB, which has beaten some good teams in our league. If we play well in doubles we have a chance (to) beat anybody in the conference.”
The Cougars enter the tournament as the No. 10 seed after posting an 11-7 regular-season record. They face a higher ranked opponent in East Carolina, which sits at no. 7 after finishing the regular season 17-9.
After an up-and-down regular season, the Cougars ended their campaign with strong showings. Excluding the season finale, the Cougars won three of their final four regular-season matches and showed some progress and improvement in all aspects of the game.
This marks the sixth straight season that the Cougars have won at least 10 games under the tutelage of Severance. Severance said that after the pleasing performance against UAB, he and his team are looking forward to taking on ECU in Tulsa.
“We are very excited to play ECU,” Severance said Wednesday. “We are looking forward to playing well this weekend.”
