The UNC Wilmington women’s basketball team had high expectations coming into this season following the success of last year’s record-breaking squad. The 2010-11 team won 24 games and was selected to play in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament. Both accomplishments were firsts in program history.

Now the Seahawks are back in the postseason for the second straight year.

Coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke was asleep when the WNIT pairings came out late Monday night. Her husband woke her up around 10 p.m. to announce that the season wasn’t over for the Seahawks. UNCW will host Southern Conference power Appalachian State in the first round of the WNIT, Thursday at 7 p.m.

“We are excited. We felt like we deserved a shot at a postseason and we are excited to be a part of the WNIT and extend our season,” said Cooper-Dyke. “We are ready to play; we didn’t want to stop playing and there’s a bitter taste left in our mouths with how we performed in our last game, so we want to redeem ourselves.”

The Seahawks head to the postseason with a 20-12 overall record following a 66-39 loss to Delaware, the seventh ranked team in the nation, in the semifinals of the CAA Tournament. UNCW’s win against Hofstra in the quarterfinals marked the first time that the program has had back-to-back 20-win seasons. It was also the highest scoring affair of the season for UNCW, in which the team recorded a whopping 94 points.

The Seahawks’ backcourt has been instrumental in the team’s success all season and especially during their two wins in the CAA Tournament. Led by sophomores Alisha Andrews and Abria Trice, as well as junior Jessica Freeman, the guards have provided the majority of the points for UNCW and have also gotten after it defensively.

Trice has been a consistent scorer for the Seahawks all year, but she really made her mark in the CAA Tournament where she averaged 17.3 points per game and was named to the All-Tournament team. The experience all three guards have in the WNIT is something they believe will be beneficial to them this time around.

“I feel like I’m more prepared to go past one game or two more games,” said Freeman, who had 17 points, eight steals, five rebounds and five assists against Hofstra in the CAA quarterfinals. “Last year gave me more wisdom as far as my body and what to expect for this postseason.”

The biggest challenge for UNCW against the Mountaineers will likely be defending Southern Conference Player-of-the-Year Anna Freeman. The junior led the league in the scoring (15.1 ppg), free throw percentage (87 percent) and steals (3.6). She also ranks second in blocks with 2.1 per game.

“I think every scorer is a tough matchup because you know they are going to score,” said Cooper-Dyke. “You just want to limit their touches and not put them on the free throw line. You want to do some special things with them and know where they are on the court, but you don’t want to focus so much on those players that you allow everyone else to have a career night.”

The Mountaineers enter Thursday’s contest with a 25-6 overall record after losing to Samford in the Southern Conference Championship game on March 5. If the Seahawks manage to beat the visitors from Boone, they will face the winner of N.C. State and High Point. UNCW has already played N.C. State once this season, when they lost to the Wolfpack 83-64 in Raleigh, Nov. 16.