Price, Marosites and Byrd named All-SAC

Price, Marosites and Byrd named All-SAC
Posted: Mar 07, 2019

ROCK HILL, S.C. – Three Carson-Newman players were named All-South Atlantic Conference selections Thursday with Haris Price and Kayla Marosites taking a spot on the top team and Addison Byrd earning a slot on the honorable mention unit.

With two players on the top squad, Carson-Newman achieves the feat for a second-straight season. Prior to last season, the program had only accomplished the feat once before. In 1997-97, Sarah Dagley and Kori Linebarger were pinned to the first team.

Price becomes the fifth player in the history of the school to earn a slot on the first team multiple times in her career after being on the club as a junior. The Gatlinburg, Tenn. native ranks sixth in the country in free-throw percentage at 90 percent on the season. She is second in scoring at 18.9, second in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.89, second in field goals made at 202, second in field-goal percentage at 52 and third in steals at 63.

After being a first-team All-American last season, the point guard is shooting a higher percentage from the field and the charity stripe while scoring more points than 2017-18. Price has scored in double figures 23 times including three with at least 30 points.

The three-time SAC Player of the Week become the first C-N player in 40 years to score at least 40 points when she dropped 44 at Lenoir-Rhyne on Feb. 2 going 16-for-26 from the field scoring 31 in the second half. The last Lady Eagle to accomplish the feat was Data Caldwell's school-record 47 on Feb. 22, 1979, 790 games and 14,592 days prior.

Roughly a month earlier, Price went for 39 points on 16-for-20 shooting against Catawba. On the school's scoring list, she sits in seventh with 1,362 having scored 1,683 overall for her career. The senior is eighth on the program's assists ledger with 337 and sixth on the three-point list with 130.

Marosites was named second-team All-SAC last season bumping up to the first team as a junior. The guard leads the league and is fourth in the nation with 20 double-doubles on the year. Her total rebound tally of 325 boards is good for 10th in Division II while ranking 15th in rebounding average at 11.2 and 16th with four offensive rebounds per game. She is top 10 in the conference in scoring, ninth, free-throw percentage, fifth, steals, fifth, and three-pointers made, eighth.

In Wednesday's SAC Quarterfinal contest, the Elizabethton, Tenn. native became the first C-N player since at least 2000 to rack up at least 20 double-doubles in a season passing Shari Buford's mark of 19 from 2009-10.

The two-time SAC Player of the Week recorded a program record of 22 rebounds in a game against Columbus State on Nov. 25. She has scored in double figures 24 times and has 23 games with at least 10 boards leading the team in the latter category 24 times.

On Feb. 21, Marosites became the first Lady Eagles in the history of the program to be named to the Google Cloud CoSIDA Academic All-District team sporting a 3.73 grade-point average in child and family studies.

In her second season at the Creek, the junior has moved into the top 10 in two categories. Her 106 made three-pointers places her ninth on the list and her 689 rebounds has her sitting in 10th. With 834 career points, she will become the 23rd member of the school's 1,000-point club early in her senior season.

Byrd adds the final piece to the all-conference ledger after a massive improvement from her rookie campaign. The Nashville, Tenn. native has started all 28 games she has played in averaging 12.6 points per game shooting 48 percent from the field adding five rebounds per game.

She ranks seventh in the conference in field goals made with 144 while her efficiency of 48 percent puts her in sixth. Byrd has produced double-digit scoring efforts 20 times including a string of 13 in-a-row from Nov. 10 through Jan 9. She scored a career-high 25 points in 31 minutes at Columbus State on Nov. 25 going 11-for-17 from the floor. Nearly a month later, she went 9-for-11 from the field and six of seven from long range to score 24 points at Shorter on Dec. 29.

The Lady Eagles await the NCAA Division II selection show that is slated to air on NCAA.com starting at 10 p.m. on Sunday night where the club will learn their position for the NCAA Southeast Regional.

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