VIDEO: Ashley Tiernan Interview
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Putting a bow on the regular season, Carson-Newman gets set to honor a pair of seniors Friday night at 7 p.m. against Tusculum before tying the knot on the slate at UVA Wise on Saturday at 5 p.m. in South Atlantic Conference action.
Taylor Rohr (Windsor, Colo.) and Erin Edwards (Midlothian Va.) will play their final home games of their careers against the Pioneers on Friday. Rohr has been a key piece of the team's success during her career leading the team in assists 44 times including 19 during the 2019 SAC Tournament and Southeast Region championships season. The setter produced 17 double-doubles in her career and has dished out nearly 1,500 assists.
Edwards has logged one of the best careers in school history being named to the All-SAC squad twice on top of being an all-region hitter and the 2019 SAC Tournament MVP. The opposite ranks in the top 10 in program history in hitting percentage and block assists while producing 917 kills including 40 matches of at least 10. The top night of her tenure came in the 2019 regional title match where she registered a career-high 19 kills to secure the trophy for the second time in five years.
"Their leadership has been massive this year," Carson-Newman coach Ashley Tiernan said. "They have a lot of experience on the court the past couple of years. They really grabbed our younger athletes and showed them what it meant to be a part of this program. They have looked up to both Taylor and Erin asking questions and what to know what it feels like to get to that level. They have given our younger athletes insight into what it's like and that has been big for us."
After the penultimate weekend showed a four-way tie for first place in the league, Carson-Newman (17-12, 10-6) knows it will travel for the SAC Quarterfinals snapping a string of five straight years hosting to open the league tournament. The last time the Eagles went on the road to start the postseason came in 2011 when it took a 27-0 Wingate team that had lost six sets all year to that point to five frames before falling to the Bulldogs.
"I believe we can beat anybody," Tiernan said. "If we can find that right puzzle piece and put the parts on the floor that we need to work to beat anybody then we will be fine. We have to believe in ourselves. As soon as our girls realize how to do that it's going to be really awesome to watch."
Friday night is the 65th meeting with Tusculum (17-4, 13-3) with the Pioneers holding a slight 34-30 edge in the series. When the teams first played this year on Sept. 24, three sets were decided by double-digits before Tusculum held off the Eagles to win in five sets behind 15 aces and eight blocks.
It appeared the Pioneers were in the driver's seat for its first-ever regular-season championship entering last week but they were swept on the road by Newberry and Anderson to snap a seven-match winning streak. Three of the four losses this year have been sweeps.
Despite the losses the club still sits in a prime spot to host the regional sitting at the No. 1 slot in week two of the regional rankings. The Pioneers have played the second-toughest schedule in the region and has the top RPI of .633 sweeping the season series with Wingate.
Home court may be even more imperative as the team is 10-0 at home but 4-4 on the road. Efficiency is the biggest difference as the team hits .260 at home versus a .191 margin in road affairs while posting 2.39 aces per set inside of Pioneer Arena against a 1.76 clip when travelling.
The club needs to hold serve to cling to at least a share of the league regular season title with the strongest area for the team coming from the service line where it ranks 19th nationally with 2.10 aces per set led by Elise Carmichael's 0.72, the No. 1 margin in the country.
Four different players have won a SAC Player of the Week plaudit this year led by two from Emiah Burrowes. The junior outside hitter ranks fifth in the league in kills per set with 3.27 and eighth in hitting percentage at .286 but is coming off of a season-low five in the sweep to Anderson.
Carly Sosnowski sits in fourth on the conference table with 5.08 digs per set piling up more than 20 on 11 occasions including a season-high 31 in a four-set win over Queens on Oct. 9.
The Eagles face off with UVA Wise (4-20, 0-16) for the fifth time since the unit joined the league in 2019 winning all four including three in straight sets. The first meeting this year saw the unit hit .440, the second-highest margin yielded by the Cavaliers on the year anchored by 10 from Emmagrace Cobb (Greensboro, N.C.).
Entering this weekend's action, the Cavs have lost 50 consecutive conference outings including all 46 matches since it joined the SAC. The last league win came during their Mountain East days beating Glenville State on Oct. 20, 2018 in straight sets. Of the SAC losses, 38 have been sweeps including 14 of the 16 in 2021.
The conference skid is currently the second-longest active mark in Division II with Purdue Northwest out of the GLIAC leading the list having lost 64 in a row. Expanding the drought to all three divisions, it is the third-longest mark of the 1,060 NCAA volleyball programs with Bryn Mawr's 58-contest skid in Division III's Centennial Conference the only other one longer that Wise.
Wise's current overall skid is nine matches with the last win coming in five frames against Emory & Henry on Oct. 5. The Cavaliers have dropped 24 consecutive sets since winning the opening game against Catawba 25-23 on Oct. 9.
At the net, the club has struggled to find any rhythm in attack producing the 12th-fewest kills per set on average with 8.65 while hitting .055 as a team, the eighth-worst margin in the nation. Overall the team has hit under .100 in 19 of 24 matches with a negative margin six times.
Friday night's Tennessee affair will be broadcast on cneagles.com/live courtesy of the Eagle Sports Network with a video stream available. Saturday's road game at Wise will have video and live stats to follow along.
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