HARTSVILLE, S.C. – Lindsey Taylor scored a career-high 35 points as Carson-Newman shot 61 percent to throttle Coker 85-65 in the South Atlantic Conference regular-season finale at the DeLoach Center on Saturday.
"She is capable of doing that," Carson-Newman coach Mike Mincey said. "I am really proud of a couple things that we talked about at the half. We realized the way they were guarding her that we had an entry to get the ball to her. Our backup post is Sydney Pearce and she realized the Lindsey needed to stay on the floor because she was feeling it and we had the avenue to get it to her. Our players were finding her. I really liked how we played the first half and in the third quarter."
Carson-Newman (23-5, 20-4) beats Coker (6-20, 5-19) for the 13th consecutive meeting scoring at least 80 points for the 10th time in that stretch. The 23 wins for the Lady Eagles are the second-most by the team under Mincey.
Taylor led all scorers with 35 points going 15-for-16 from the field adding five foul shots and five rebounds. It was the second 30-point outburst of her career surpassing a 33-point night at Mars Hill on Jan. 18, 2021.
Addison Byrd (Nashville, Tenn.) and Braelyn Wykle (Greeneville, Tenn.) were the only other players in double figures scoring a dozen apiece. Byrd went 6-for-8 from the field adding five assists while moving into 18th on the all-time scoring list passing Kailyn Brooks.
�� 60 percent shooting
— Carson-Newman Athletics (@CN_Eagles) February 26, 2022
3️⃣5️⃣ points from @19LindseyTaylor
✅ second-most wins under @MikeMincey
�� @CNwbasketball road win pic.twitter.com/NnsqFRqkcV
The Orange and Blue led wire-to wire for the third time in the last five games forcing 24 turnovers scoring 32 points on those giveaways. Fifty-six of C-N's points came in the paint.
C-N scored the game's first four points of the day and nine of the first 11 over the first two minutes to jump out to a lead that held at 21-12 after the opening quarter.
Spanning the frame, an 11-2 scoring burst by the Cobras pulled the home unit with two points at 23-21 with 7:42 to go before halftime. The Lady Eagles answered with a 9-0 scoring run and pulled the lead out to 42-29 at the break.
To start the second half, Carson-Newman scored the first six points and 21 of the first 24 to blow open the game taking a 63-32 advantage, the largest of the day on a Taylor layup with 3:48 to play in the third. The Cobras scored 12 of the final 16 points to make it a 67-44 game going into the fourth.
Neither side scored more than five straight points in the fourth as the Lady Eagles missed their final five field goals but won by at least 20 points for the 12th time this year.
Despite the last cold spell, Carson-Newman shot 62 percent from the field in the second half at one point making 12 shots in a row, seven of which came from the hand of Taylor.
Ashauntee Nelson led the way for the home team scoring 15 points making five of her 10 shots. Saquita Joyner was the other double-digit scorer adding a dozen points on 5-for-8. Coker outrebounded the Lady Eagles 29-28 and shot 45 percent from the field.
The Lady Eagles are the No. 2 seed and begin the SAC Women's Basketball Championships on Wednesday evening at 5:30 p.m. hosting seventh-seeded UVA Wise. Air time on the Eagle Sports Network is 1:45 p.m. with "The AEC Countdown to Tip-Off" on Mountain Sports 106.3 (WPFT-FM, Sevierville) with an audio stream available on cneagles.com/live.
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