Coastal women’s soccer looks to make time at Sun Belt tournament worthwhile

The Coastal Carolina women’s soccer team begins their postseason run today in Foley, Alabama and the team is on a mission.

For the past two seasons, Coastal Carolina has reached the Sun Belt tournament championship game but have come up short. In both 2016 and 2017, the Chanticleers fell to South Alabama.

However, this time feels different for the Chanticleers.

Coastal Carolina enters the Sun Belt tournament as the third seed and is ahead of South Alabama, who is the fifth seed, in seeding for the first time since joining the Sun Belt.

Coastal does have their work cut out for them though if they want to return to Conway with their first ever conference championship victory. Should the Chanticleers win tonight, they will face off against either the second seeded Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajun’s or the seventh seeded Arkansas State Red Wolves.

Coastal defeated both teams earlier this season, defeating Lafayette 3-0 on Oct. 5 and defeating Arkansas State in double overtime on Oct. 25.

Coastal Carolina head coach Paul Hogan spoke after the Arkansas State game about how the team needed to improve before the trip to Foley for the Sun Belt championship.

“It is a whole new season now,” said Hogan. “We are excited about going to Foley and we hope to spend the whole week there.”

For senior Lauren Dabner, the last two seasons have ended pretty rough. Dabner hopes that in her final year at Coastal she can end the year on a high note.

“We just have to keep building on what we have been doing the past couple of weeks,” said Dabner. “We aren’t really scared about any team that will be in the tournament. Plus, I think by now we are all pretty angry about the results the past two seasons. We are going into Foley with redemption on our minds and hopefully we can go out and finally win.”

The Chanticleers will face Georgia State tonight in the Sun Belt quarterfinals. The Chants are looking for a bit of redemption after being thrashed by the Panthers 4-0 on Oct. 14 in Statesboro, Ga.

Kickoff between Coastal and Georgia State is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET and the game can be viewed on ESPN+.