ANDERSON, S.C. – With three contests remaining on the docket in the 2019 calendar year, Carson-Newman hits the road for the final time to take on 16th-ranked Anderson Saturday at 2 p.m. from the Abney Athletic Center after losing three of the last four games.
While coach Mike Mincey gets a second chance to tie Eddie Carter's school record for SAC wins with his 107th, there is another record on watch. Kayla Marosites (Elizabethton, Tenn.) has produced 40 double-doubles in her career needing one more to tie Shari Buford's career mark of 41 that she posted from 2006-10. The senior has notched the tally in just 72 outings leading the country this year with six. Dating back to her junior campaign, the guard has 14 double-doubles in her last 17 times on the floor.
Carson-Newman (5-3, 1-1) has held a halftime lead in seven of its first eight games this year but has lost three times. While the club is being outscored by three points in each the third and fourth quarters overall, the Lady Eagles are minus-27 in the second half being outpaced by at least eight. Foes are shooting 51 percent in the second half in those games while C-N is posting a 37 percent mark.
"Our third quarters, especially against Clayton and North Georgia have really hurt us," Mincey said. "The third quarter helped us against Wingate but then the fourth hurt us. We tend to have that one bad quarter. Offensively our numbers look really good but defensively we are having miscommunication."
Anderson (6-1, 2-0) is looking to match its longest winning streak against C-N in the history of the series when it won three games in a row in 2013-14. The Lady Eagles hold the all-time lead at 13-10 but are 4-6 in contests in the Palmetto State.
The Lady Eagles trailed by as many as a dozen in the first meeting last season but missed eight foul shots after entering the game No. 1 in the country in the area losing 84-81. In the second contest, C-N missed 22 layups and posted its second-lowest field-goal percentage of the year in a 72-63 road loss.
Atop of the table in the preseason poll, Anderson is the reigning league regular-season and tournament champion. The Trojans did not lose a SAC game last season but lost to Lander 64-61 on their home floor in the Southeast Region semifinals. While the reigning SAC Player of the Year, Alexy Mollenhauer, is back in the fold, coach Jonathon Barbaree has to replace the conference's third-leading scorer, Ace Easter.
"They are obviously a very sound team because they good size," Mincey said. "Mollenhauer is a really good player. She can score on her own without having any help. They are a really good rebounding team. They don't give you a lot of second-chance opportunities. When things aren't going well outside, they have an inside presence that can get them easy buckets."
Anderson boasts the second-longest conference winning streak of any team in the country having won 25 consecutive SAC meetings. Wingate's 67-58 win on Feb. 17, 2018 was the last regular season loss while Lenoir-Rhyne's 56-51 win on Jan. 20, 2018 is the last time a SAC team beat the Trojans on their home floor. Including postseason games, the last loss to a SAC school came in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament when C-N won on its home floor 70-62.
The Trojans are the best rebounding team in America posting a plus-19 margin on the glass averaging 48 boards per game, the seventh-most. Thirty-three of those caroms come at the defensive end while the team is fourth in the SAC on the offensive end.
Otherwise Anderson is the upper half of the conference in the other statistical categories ranking fourth in the SAC in scoring defense yielding 59 per game and field-goal percentage defense with a 36 clip allowed.
Mollenhauer is third in the conference in scoring and rebounding posting 18 points and 12 boards with four double-doubles in 2019, the eighth-most in the nation. Her name litters the league leaders leading the SAC in two areas, three-point percentage with 49 and defensive rebounds per game, 10.
Only two players are scoring in double figures this year with Taylor Hair notching just shy of 11 points per game and shooting 53 percent from the field. After failing to post a double-digit effort in the first four contests of the year, Hair has 51 points in her last three games.
Saturday's tilt will air on locally on radio on 106.3 (WPFT-FM) starting 15 minutes prior to the opening tap with "The AEC Countdown to Tip-Off" on the Eagle Sports Network. Fans out of the area can access the audio stream on cneagles.com/live.
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