Sullivan wins SAC Newcomer of the Year, highlighting postseason accolades

Posted: Mar 03, 2025

ROCK HILL, S.C. – Jennifer Sullivan and Lindsey Taylor both earned first-team all-conference honors with Sullivan also notching Newcomer of the Year honors, as announced by the South Atlantic Conference earlier today.

With the duo each being named to the All-SAC first team, it's the seventh time in the past eight seasons that the Lady Eagles have placed a duo on the first team.

Jennifer Sullivan becomes just the second player to earn Newcomer of the Year in the conference, with this being the second year of the award.

"The process for me was super easy," Sullivan said. "I've played with a lot of these girls from the time we were little, either against them or with them. They made it super easy coming in. I'm thankful to be here and have the teammates that I do."

The junior guard acclimated quite well in her first year at Mossy Creek. She scored 14 points per game while shooting 44 percent from the field and making 42 percent of her three-pointers, the second-highest shooting mark from deep in the league. Sullivan scored in double-figures 20 times and notched seven 20-point games in the regular season. Her best scoring game of the season came on Jan 15 versus UVA Wise, when she scored a career-high 29 points and made a career high 11 field goals.

The Tennessee Tech transfer made three or more triples 11 different times this season and dished out three or more assists 16 times. Sullivan made a career-high six triples in a 20-point rout of Lenoir-Rhyne on Nov 16. Her best passing game featured her first career double-double, scoring 17 points and dishing out a career-high 10 assists versus Wingate on Jan 18.

For the fourth straight season, Lindsey Taylor earns first-team All-SAC honors. The graduate student has produced yet another superb season with C-N. She is scoring right at her career average of 14.3 points per contest and has 18 double-figure games including seven games with 20 points or more. Taylor has five of her 28 career double-doubles this season. In just 26 minutes on the floor versus Mars Hill on Feb 5, she scored a career-high 38 points, making a career-best 17 field goals of the 19 she attempted.

Taylor's shooting this season has been ridiculously good. She leads the country in field goal percentage, making 67.7 percent of her shots. That mark is five percent better than the best mark in a season in program history, which she set during the 2021-22 season when she made 62.1 percent of her field goal attempts. The Maryville, Tenn native has 18 games this season in which she has made more than 60 percent of her field goals.

The post player has 400 total points this season, bringing her career total to 1,676. She is 62 points away from passing Leah Jackson for third all-time on the program's scoring list.

Taylor has been Carson-Newman's top rebounder again this season. She has led her team in rebounding in 20 of the 28 games this season, while notching 10 or more boards in eight games. Her best rebounding performance of the year came in a three-point win over Anderson on Jan 25, when she snagged a career-high 18 rebounds to go along with 22 points.

"It's the team chemistry that we have," Taylor said. "We've played so long together and so well together that we just connect and it makes everyone's job a little bit easier."

Sullivan and Taylor lead Carson-Newman into the South Atlantic Conference Tournament quarterfinals on Wednesday against seventh-seeded Lincoln Memorial at 7:30 p.m. Coverage on the Eagle Sports Network begins at 7:15 p.m. with the AEC Countdown to Tipoff on Mix 105.5 (WSEV-FM, Sevierville) and online at cneagles.com/live.