The SMU women’s tennis team reached the second round of the NCAA Championship in each of the last two seasons. To Lauren Longbotham Meisner, the Mustangs’ über-competitive, fifth-year head coach, however, that no longer is good enough.

The Ponies have qualified for the NCAA Championship in each of the three seasons Aleksandra Malyarchikova, left, and Marta Lesniak have been on the team (photo by SMU athletics).

“Our team has wanted to go to the national championship every year —that’s something we strive for,” Longbotham Meisner said. “Anyone who knows the program knows how competitive I am, and if the coach is as competitive I am, it rubs off on the girls. Then, when you have the caliber of players we have, they hate to lose, too. It runs throughout the whole team.”

With that competitive nature as a backdrop, the Ponies, who are ranked No. 32 in the nation in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) rankings, took a significant step forward in the growth of their team last weekend when they knocked off No. 31 Texas A&M and No. 12 Florida State in College Station the first two rounds of this year’s NCAA Championship. The victories over the homestanding Aggies and Seminoles improved the Ponies’ record this season to 23-5 and sent them through to the round of 16 for the first time since 1987, in which SMU will face No. 7 Baylor Friday at Stanford University’s Taube Tennis Center in Palo Alto, Calif.

The match will represent a rematch for the Ponies and Bears, who met March 23 in Waco, with Baylor pulling out a 4-3 win over the Ponies.

“The fact that we played Baylor and only lost, 4-3, down there (in Waco) against a strong program like that gives us a lot of confidence — we know we can play with them,” Longbotham Meisner said. “In every match, we have to come out with the attitude that ‘you have to come out and beat me to get this match.’ If we do that, and do everything we can do and fall short, that’s fine. But we need to seize the moment and play the best we can. We want to win, and we know we can.”

When the teams met a couple of months ago, SMU’s Marta Lesniak (ranked No. 9 in the nation in the latest ITA ranking) won at the No. 1 singles spot, and Aleksandra Malyarchikova won at No. 4 singles. In addition, the teams of Lesniak and Malyarchikova and Edyta Cieplucha and Heather Steinbauer won the doubles point of the match for SMU. Longbotham Meisner said winning the doubles point again will be very beneficial in the Mustangs’ effort to advance past the Bears Friday.

“We got the doubles point in Waco, and it’s going to be important again this time,” Longbotham Meisner said. “When you go play at Baylor, they have a huge advantage at home — they have a great crowd, they have slow courts, it was hot and humid … it’s a tough place to play. So the fact that we’re going to be on a neutral playing field will help us. Baylor is known for being able to hit 1,000,000 balls, so you have to be able to hit 1,000,001 balls, or you have to be really aggressive.”

The doubles point, Longbotham Meisner said, would be a huge boost for the Ponies. But at the same time, it won’t make or break the outcome for her team, which lost the doubles point in each match last weekend and still came out victorious over A&M and Florida State.

“Look, if we lose the doubles point, they’re going to get the same talk,” Longbotham Meisner said. “‘You have done this before against a top-15 team.’ If I can improve anything between now and then, I do want to win doubles point … but we’re not going to rely on it. You hope for it, but you don’t rely on it. If you don’t get it, it’s not over.”

Longbotham Meisner said she doesn’t worry about her team being intimidated by the magnitude of the event. The Ponies played earlier this season at Stanford in February, and they seem to thrive on the challenges presented by playing away from home.

“This is the best road team I have ever had,” she said. “They love playing on the road. To go on the road, we go to cool places, we eat good food. The fact that we had been to Stanford, and played in that arena … we have been there, so I don’t really worry about (the players) letting the ambience take over or overwhelm them.”

The mental toughness and resilience with which the Mustangs play is a reflection of their über-competitive coach, Lauren Longbotham Meisner (photo by SMU athletics).

Longbotham Meisner has a relatively young team, with two freshmen, two sophomores, four juniors — Lesniak, Malyarchikova, Steinbauer, who transferred from Vanderbilt, and Ashley Turpin, who transferred from Texas A&M — and no seniors. But she said the absence of seniors actually could help her team this week.

“Seniors get nerves, because they can get more emotional, based on desperation,” she said. “I love young teams, because I feel like they play to their potential, rather than with any kind of nerves. I feel like I have had Marta and Sasha (Malyarchikova) for years, because even though they are only juniors, they act like seniors. They have been there, done that. They were the program-changers.

“Since we got them, we have been to the NCAAs every year. This is something they’re excited about; they have worked three full years for this. Freshman year, they didn’t really know how things work, but now they do. Both Heather and Ashley, even though it’s their first year at SMU, they have been in it before, challenging for titles.”

Coaches often talk about the “process” of building a program. When Lesniak and Malyarchikova arrived at SMU three years ago, the initial goal was making it to the NCAA Championship. But with those two as the leaders, merely qualifying for the national postseason tournament no longer is the goal — it’s the expectation.

“The girls realize that with all of the drama and injuries and everything that has happened this year, they had to stick together and work hard, and never give up, and if they do that, they’re going to be in a position to win,” Longbotham Meisner said. “Would I like to win the conference title? Yes. But do I want the Sweet 16 more? Absolutely.

“Now we’re in the Sweet 16. But we’re not just going for the banquet — we’re going out there trying to do something. If we keep winning, we could be playing three matches in four days, and that’s our goal: to keep winning.”