JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Seeking its third South Atlantic Conference Tournament title, fourth-seeded Carson-Newman will play on its home court Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. against third-seeded Queens (N.C.).
In 2016, Carson-Newman (17-13) won a total of three matches. In the history of the league, only one team has ever won the conference tournament following a losing campaign – the 2000 Carson-Newman Eagles. In 1999, C-N posted a 12-23 overall record and followed that up with a 17-19 season in 2000 but captured the title with wins over Catawba and Wingate.
"It's absolutely unbelievable to watch a group of young women go through 3-27 and have honest conversations with each other on what we want to build. What do we want to be? How do we get this thing turned back around? Give those two seniors credit. They just keep leading them. It's been fun to watch."
C-N is 30-26 in the SAC Tournament all-time including a pair of league titles in 2000 and 2002. The Eagles have appeared in four title outings in 2000, 2002, 2007 and 2009 recording a 2-2 mark. Each victory for C-N has come in straight sets while the losses came to Wingate in three and four frames respectively.
Seven schools have won a SAC Tournament Championship since 1990. Of those seven programs, Mars Hill and Lenoir-Rhyne are the only two that have not won multiple titles. Wingate leads the way with 12 championships followed by six from Presbyterian, three by Catawba and two each from Carson-Newman and Gardner-Webb.
This season will be the sixth time in 28 tournaments that the winner will not be a top-two seed. Three seeds Catawba (1992), Wingate (2003) and Lenoir-Rhyne (2015) along with No. 5 seed Carson-Newman (2000) and sixth-seeded Catawba (2001) are the instances where the top two seeds failed to hoist the trophy.
Saturday will be the first time the two programs square off in postseason play as the Eagles hold a narrow 7-5 edge in the all-time series. Each team won a match during the regular season as the schools play for the second time in seven days in Holt Fieldhouse.
C-N earned a sweep last Saturday as Marnie Streeter (Goldvein, Va.) led all players on the night with 16 kills hitting .275 while piling up seven digs. Megan Oldenburger (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) notched a career-high 22 digs as she cranked out eight kills. Alex Biro (Ootlewah, Tenn.) produced one of the most efficient outings of the year for C-N with eight kills on 12 swings without a miscue to hit .667.
Streeter has recorded double-digit kills in 12 straight matches entering play Saturday leading an offense that is hitting its stride. C-N is averaging 11.58 kills per set and hitting .174 in November despite playing all five matches versus regionally-ranked foes.
Casey Tarvin led the way for the Royals with 13 kills and eight digs as no other Royal had more than six kills. Kunz racked up 31 assists and 11 digs while Jaycee Jones and Lexie Dolecheck had 12 digs apiece.
Queens (22-7) is in the championship match for a second straight year after being swept by top-seeded Wingate in 2016. The Royals have earned sweeps in their first two matches of the tournament over Mars Hill and Wingate. QU is now 15-3 in its last 18 matches since Sept. 29.
Friday saw the unit record a dominating effort over the Bulldogs as Queens made just five attack errors and hit .379 as a club. Jordan Proszenyak led the club with a match-high 14 kills on a .324 attack percentage. The trio of Jessica Raines, Taylor Henry and Alex Thompson combined for 20 kills without a mistake on 30 attacks.
Coach Hannah Long's group had four players named to all-conference teams and a pair of all-freshman picks on the year. First-team All-SAC outside hitter Rebecca Cochran has missed the last seven matches and ranks fifth in the league in kills per set.
Kunz is Queens's other representative on the top unit after ranking second in the conference in assists per set with 11.16. The senior has 16 double-doubles and has had seven outings with at least 50 helpers.
The Eagle Sports Network will have the production for the contest with high definition video feeds available on cneagles.com/live starting 15 minutes before first serve.
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