GAFFNEY, S.C. – For the last time during the regular season in 2021, 11th-ranked Carson-Newman packs its bags and gets on a bus travelling to the Timken Center to face Limestone on Saturday at 2 p.m. in the penultimate South Atlantic Conference regular-season game of the year.
"They are very athletic," Carson-Newman coach Mike Mincey said. "When we beat them here 87-82, their dribble-drive got us a little bit. They hit 13 threes in that game and we didn't understand how good their guards are but they do now. That was a game we could have lost early in the year. Limestone has our full attention. We know they are a very capable basketball team. Their record means nothing. They are a good basketball team and a storied program that has won a bunch of games."
On the year, the Lady Eagles are 7-1 on the road and have scored 80-plus points in three of the last four road trips making better than 50 percent twice. The Orange and Blue are scoring 78 points per game and making 44 percent from the field attempting 19 foul shots per game.
Saturday is the first time Carson-Newman (14-1, 14-1) visits the Timken Center since the 2015 NCAA Women's Championship when the Lady Eagles fell to second-seeded Columbus State 58-40 despite pulling within five points with 11 minutes to play.
The program has only played Limestone (5-7, 5-6) three times winning the first regular-season meeting by five at Holt Fieldhouse. The only matchup played in Gaffney came on Nov. 16, 2011 when the Saints won 59-49 in Mincey's first game as the Lady Eagles head coach.
The Saints buried 10 three-pointers in the game and led wire-to-wire. Zoriah Williams led the Orange and Blue with 20 points to go with a team-high eight boards while Depew added 14 points and six rebounds.
Looking back at the first meeting, C-N led for 35:30 but never by more than a dozen securing its third triumph of the year. The Lady Eagles used a 12-0 fourth-quarter burst to secure the win as five players scored in double figures led by 21 points from Braelyn Wykle (Greeneville, Tenn.).
Carson-Newman won the battle on the glass 47-29 tallying 22 assists on 32 made field goals. Limestone shot 38 percent overall in the game but made 13 three-pointers, the second-most in a game this year, one of four outings with double-digit makes from distance.
The Saints were shut down for 23 days due to Covid issues returning to the hardwood for the first time since Jan. 23 on Wednesday night throttling Queens 93-64 for their second win a row, both coming inside of the friendly confines.
Limestone has been a different team this year at home going 5-2 versus a winless 0-5 mark in road affairs this year. Four of the five wins have been by double figures. In home games this year the team is scoring six more points, 72, and shooting six percent better from the field, 42, and eight points higher from long distance, 39.
Coach Corey Fox has at elite trio of scorers with Quin Byrd, Reagan McCray and Reagan Kargo averaging 47 of the team's 70 points per game this year. All three finished in double figures in the meeting at Holt Fieldhouse with the Reagans each scoring 23 points.
McCray is No. 1 in the SAC in three-point shooting burying 44 on the year and converting at a 48 percent margin. Over her last four games she is shooting 55 percent from beyond the arc. The redshirt-junior has posted 19 points per game and is shooting above 50 percent in home affairs this year.
Kargo produced a season-high 23 points in the first meeting and has scored 20-plus points three times this year. The rookie is top 10 in the league in four categories ranking in the top five in both three-point percentage and field-goal efficiency.
At the defensive end, the Saints are second in the league in turnovers forced per game, 19, and steals per game, 10. Out of 12 contests on the year, the club has produced at least 10 pilfers on seven occasions. It matched a season low on Wednesday with four takeaways in a 29-point drubbing of Queens.
Saturday's affair can be enjoyed on two platforms. Radio coverage can be found on 106.3 (WPFT-FM, Sevierville) with an audio stream available on cneagles.com/live starting at 1:45 p.m. with "The Appalachian Electric Cooperative Countdown to Tip-Off".
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