GREENWOOD, S.C. – The Carson-Newman women's basketball team defeated the USC Aiken Pacers 80-66 in their 2019-20 regular season opener at Finis Horne Arena on the campus of Lander University in Greenwood, South Carolina.
Freshman Braelyn Wykle (Greenville, TN) scored 20 points on 8-13 shooting including four made threes.
She was one of four Lady Eagles to score in double figures as seniors Kayla Marosites (Elizabethton, TN) and Tori Griffin (Strawberry Plains, TN) both put up 13 points while Junior Addison Byrd (Nashville, TN) posted a dozen.
The team shot 40 percent from three-point range, hitting a total of 14 shots from downtown. Conversely, C-N held USC Aiken to 17 percent shooting from beyond the arc.
Carson-Newman got out to a hot start and led 27-17 after the first quarter. The Eagles' offense was ignited throughout the game by their air-tight pressing defense which forced the Pacers into 18 turnovers, leading to 24 C-N points.
A bright spot for USC Aiken was the play of redshirt-junior center Kwakelin Farrar who posted a 17-point, 13-rebound triple-double.
The second-team all-southeast region player and PBC first-teamer from last year also accounted for half of her team's assists with four.
Meanwhile, the Lady Eagles showed superior ball movement, racking up 15 assists, led by Wykle and sophomore guard Abby Wilson (Kingtson, TN) who also posted six points and recorded three steals.
Freshman Harli Smith (Jamestown, TN) was second on the team in minutes played with 31, behind only her fellow freshman Wykle who was out there for 33 minutes. Smith led the team in rebounds with nine and went 3-4 from the field.
This marked the sixth straight victory for Carson-Newman over the Pacers, a win streak that dates back to 2003.
It was the seventh consecutive year that the Eagles have won their season opener and it was the first day of a two-day affair as the Lady Eagles turn around and face the 21st-ranked Lander Bearcats at 3 p.m. on Nov. 9th.
Be sure to keep up with the Lady Eagles all season long on all of C-N's social media platforms and on cneagles.com.
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