CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Queens turned the ball over 23 times leading to 35 points for sixth-ranked Carson-Newman as the Lady Eagles shot 55 percent to pick up their 12th straight win to start the year 92-47 Wednesday night in South Atlantic Conference action inside of Curry Arena.
"It's always the key by the way we play," Carson-Newman coach Mike Mincey assessed. "Some of the games where we haven't scored as well we haven't been getting any points off of turnovers in terms of easy points. We want to get uncontested layups and we did tonight and that's why we went over 90 poinits."
Carson-Newman (12-0, 5-0) produced its best shooting percentage at 55.4 percent in a road game since shooting 57.1 percent in a 73-71 loss at Anderson on Feb. 18, 2015.
In the ninth all-time meeting, Queens (3-6, 0-4) loses for the seventh straight contest to fall to 2-7 against C-N in the most lopsided game at 45 points in the series.
A 2-2 early tie was broken as the Lady Eagles forced four turnovers during a four-minute scoring drought from Queens. A 9-0 spurt pushed C-N's lead to 11-2 on a triple from the left point by Haris Price (Gatlinburg, Tenn.). A three-pointer from Ceara Leavi with 3:34 to go in the first cut the deficit to five points at 13-8. The Lady Eagles proceeded to rattle of 12 of the final 16 points of the quarter to push the lead to 25-12 as Ashton Wykle (Greeneville, Tenn.) cashed in a three with 24 ticks to go to make it a 13-piont game after a stanza.
Each team shot 50 percent or better in the second quarter but the Lady Eagles outscored the Royals by 11 points to go into the locker room on top 50-26.
The first 20 minutes saw Mincey's group shot 53 percent from the field with a pair of double-digit scorers. Briana Smith (Nashville, Tenn.) paced all scorers with 17 points going 7-for-9 from the field with four boards, three assists and two steals. Mika Wester (Newport, Tenn.) added 12 points on five of 10 shooting.
To open the second half, C-N rattled off 12 of the first 14 points holding the Royals to one bucket over the first 4:16 of the frame. Overall, the unit went 11-for-18 from the field, 61 percent to push a 24-point halftime lead to 38 at the end of the third at 77-39.
In the fourth quarter, Jansen's unit went 3-for-11 from the field while the Eagles shot over 50 percent for the fourth time going 6-for-11. It was a 15-8 edge for C-N in the frame as it was the fewest points scored and allowed by the team this season.
Smith finished with 23 points to match her career high set earlier this season on Nov. 17 at North Georgia. The junior went 9-for-11 from the field collecting four rebounds, three assists and three steals.
"Tonight I really tried to let the game come to me," Smith analyzed. "I didn't want to force stuff like I had been doing a couple times this year. We pride ourselves on how tough our 2-2-1 [press] is to get through. That fuels our scoring so when we can get points off turnovers it's leads us the whole game."
Wester finished with 14 points, Price racked up 11 points, three assists and three steals and Wykle made all four of her three-point attempts to score 12 points.
The Lady Eagles outscored the Royals 35-2 in points off of turnovers, 24-4 in fast break points and 13-2 in second chance points. C-N was plus-13 on the glass at 36-23 and turned the ball over 10 times.
Mendy McNeese led the scoring efforts for Queens with 15 points to go along with five rebounds while Herning Wang added 10 points to the offense.
In its final game before Christmas break, Carson-Newman hosts Lenoir-Rhyne Saturday at 2 p.m. inside of Holt Fieldhouse. Tune into 106.3 (WPFT-FM, Sevierville) for the radio broadcast with audio and video streams available on cneagles.com/live starting 15 minutes before tip-off.
5⃣5⃣ Field-Goal Percentage
— C-N Athletics (@CNathletics) December 14, 2017
5⃣6⃣ Three-Point Percentage
2⃣3⃣ Points from @bri_swish
1⃣ Win for #6 @CNwbasketball pic.twitter.com/ifQG6RP2C4
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