JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Wrapping up the 2023 portion of the schedule, Carson-Newman (8-2) heads to the state of West Virginia for the first time in 16 years to battle Glenville State (7-4) tomorrow afternoon inside the Waco Center.
Tomorrow's post-Christmas matchup will be just the second time these two squads face off. The first and only meeting was played back on January 3rd, 2004. The #5 Pioneers made a trip to Holt Fieldhouse and left with a narrow 67-64 victory.
C-N's most recent trip to the Mountain state was on December 29, 2007, when it defeated West Virginia State 86-65.
On the road this season, C-N is 1-2 with tomorrow's matchup being the second and last non-conference road game the team plays this season. The first was a 62-58 loss to Georgia Southwestern back on Nov. 17.
Heading into the final game of 2023, Braelyn Wykle (Greeneville, Tenn.) is just 8 points away from becoming the program's all-time leading scorer. Wykle already set the record for three-pointers made last season and is up to 286 for her career. The graduate student leads the SAC in scoring, averaging just shy of 20 points per game. She has scored double-figures in 109 of her 121 games played. Across all three divisions in NCAA women's basketball, Wykle ranks fourth in active career points with 2,326. No active division two player has more points than the graduate student. She leads all DII active players in career points, field goals and three-point field goals.
With 8 wins so far this season, head coach Mike Mincey brings his career total to 248, two shy of tying Eddie Carter for most wins in program history.
The Lady Eagles have impressed on both ends of the floor through ten games this season. The success on offense is because of the team's passing ability. Mincey's team leads the SAC in assists per game and assist to turnover ratio, both marks that rank top 20 nationally. Defensively, C-N has done a excellent job of limiting teams second chance opportunities. The Lady Eagles rank eighth in the country in defensive rebounds per game at 30.5. No opponent has scored more than 14 second chance points this season and C-N is 7-0 when leading that category.
C-N will battle one of the premier programs that DII women's basketball has seen the last several years. Under, now first-year Marshall women's basketball head coach Kim Stephens, Glenville State won the 2022 National Championship, finishing the season 35-1. They followed that up with a 33-3 record in 2023, that saw last year's team make it all the way to the Final Four. During her seven seasons, the teams never lost more than six games in a season and has made the NCAA tournament each of the last seven seasons.
With Stephens gone, former Pioneer player Emily Stoller has had to fill some big shoes. She has this year's team 7-4, having lost two of its last three contests. Those two losses have come in conference play, while the Pioneers have won two straight against out of conference teams.
Losing their home opener to #16 West Virginia State, it snapped a 30-game home winning streak at the Waco Center. Prior to this season, the last home loss for Glenville State was in Jan. 2020. However, this season the team is 2-2, their most home losses since 2015-16. It's lost just a combined two games in the last seven seasons at home.
Expect the Pioneers to press and play at a frenetic pace all afternoon long. Emily Stoller's team ranks first in the country in steals per game (19.5) and turnovers forced per game (34). They shoot an average of 35 three-pointers per game, despite only making 28% of them. The high volume of three's taken has translated into the second highest scoring mark in DII at 91 points per game.
Tipoff from the Waco Center is set for 12:00 p.m. Broadcast coverage airs on Mountain Talk 106.3 FM and cneagles.com/live starting at 11:45 a.m. with "The AEC Countdown to Tip-Off" courtesy of the Eagle Sports Network.
