The ISU tennis team will try to get its first win of the season this weekend when it travels to South Carolina to take on the College of Charleston and Charleston Southern.

The Cyclones (0-5) will hope to end there five-game losing streak. This could prove to be a tough meet because the College of Charleston (2-2) has won the Southern Conference Championship for the past three years.

“College of Charleston is a top-60 team,” said coach Armando Espinosa. “It will be a good opportunity for us to play a ranked team and use the underdog card a little bit and try to go there and surprise them and see what happens.”

The Cyclones’ opponent on Saturday will be Charleston Southern, which has only played in one meet so far this season, having defeated Georgia Southern 6-1. The Buccaneers bring a very young team to the net with seven underclassmen and only two upperclassmen.

The team will need to prepare differently because they will be playing outside instead of indoors as it does for the majority of the season so far.

“You have to be more consistent because the ball doesn’t travel as fast, the points are longer, you need to hit heavier balls,” said senior Maria Fernanda Macedo. “Otherwise they don’t travel as well.”

Though the team is on a five-game losing streak, it had perhaps its most encouraging loss of the season last Sunday in a 4-3 loss to undefeated Iowa.  

“If we go out there with the same mentality as we did against Iowa then it should be good,” said freshman Meghan Cassens. “We should have a chance to at least come out with one win this weekend.”

Iowa State will hope to finally get some help from its doubles teams, which have combined to win only two out of 15 matches so far this season. The players are still getting used to having new partners.

“We just need to practice more because we have new doubles partners and we have never played with them before,” Macedo said. “We just need to be more aggressive and consistent.”

While winning is always a big goal, Espinosa said the main goal is to get better every meet. If the Cyclones continue to do that, Espinosa said, the wins will take care of themselves.