JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Seeking a second straight South Atlantic Conference Tournament championship, third-seeded Carson-Newman opens the postseason with sixth-seeded Limestone Tuesday night at 7 p.m. from Holt Fieldhouse.
"All of the teams in our conference are 0-0," Carson-Newman coach Ashley Tiernan said. "We all have a clean slate. The eight teams that go to the conference tournament are all going to come in with a fire and a different energy because it's a different part of the game. It's postseason. It's championship. It's how we are going to end our season. I think there is a different energy no matter who we are playing. They are going to bring a different energy to us as well."
Carson-Newman (6-3) is looking to be the first team to repeat as league champs since Wingate won nine in a row from 2006 to 2014. Four different teams have won the crown over the last five years. The Eagles are looking to become the fourth program in SAC history to win consecutive tournament titles. Catawba won the first pair in 1990 and 1991 while Presbyterian won three straight from 1992-94 and back-to-back in 2004-05.
The Orange and Blue are 34-27 in the SAC Tournament all-time including a pair of league titles in 2000, 2002 and 2019. The Eagles have appeared in six title outings in 2000, 2002, 2007, 2009, 2017 and 2019 recording a 3-3 mark. Each victory for C-N has come in straight sets while the losses came to Wingate in three and four frames respectively and Queens in four frames.
Eight schools have won a SAC Tournament Championship since 1990. Of those eight programs, Mars Hill and Lenoir-Rhyne are the only two that have not won multiple titles. Wingate leads the way with 13 championships followed by six from Presbyterian, three by Catawba and Carson-Newman and a pair by Gardner-Webb.
The Eagles are hosting a quarterfinal matchup for the fourth straight year sweeping Mars Hill and Lenoir-Rhyne the last two years with a four-set victory over Tusculum in 2017. C-N has won its opening round matchup in five straight matches. The last time it failed to advance past the first round was in a five set loss to a 27-0 Wingate team on Nov. 11, 2011.
Tiernan's troops will welcome Limestone (4-5) to the SAC Championships as the first-year league program and C-N are set to duel for the for the fourth time ever. The Eagles have won three of the four meetings including a sweep over the Saints on March 6.
On a night where the Orange and Blue hit .161, all 35 of the team's kills came off of the hand of a senior with Erin Edwards (Midlothian, Va.) leading the charge with a match-high 12 kills producing a hitting percentage of .370 adding a late solo rejection.
Carson-Newman limited Limestone (0-2, 0-2) to a .000 hitting percentage with 6.5 blocks watching the Saints commit 24 attack errors as five players had multiple hitting miscues.
Limestone entered the final weekend of the season in a tie for 10th but produced its two best matches of the year sweeping Tusculum and UVA Wise to leap up to sixth. In 2019, the program advanced to the Conference Carolinas semifinals thanks to a four-set win over North Greenville.
The Saints are the second-least efficient hitting team in the league this year with a .087 team hitting percentage with five of the nine matches seeing a margin of below .100. Vanessa Blas leads the team with 2.41 kills per set and has double figures in three of her last five.
After being the Conference Carolinas Defensive Player of the Year in 2019, Bailey Carpenter posted 4.50 digs per set this year. However opponents are hitting .163 this year with four matches above .220.
Tuesday night's match will air on the Eagle Sports Network featuring a high definition video stream starting at 7 p.m. with the first serve following shortly after from Holt Fieldhouse. Visit cneagles.com/live to find the live coverage.
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