C-N’s season ends abruptly to Catawba
March 12, 2021

C-N’s season ends abruptly to Catawba

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – In an unusual season, third-seeded Carson-Newman saw its come to a close in an uncharacteristic way falling 67-48 to sixth-seeded Catawba Friday at Holt Fieldhouse in the first round of the 2021 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship.

VIDEO: Game Highlights

VIDEO: Mike Mincey Press Conference

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – In an unusual season, third-seeded Carson-Newman saw its come to a close in an uncharacteristic way falling 67-48 to sixth-seeded Catawba Friday at Holt Fieldhouse in the first round of the 2021 NCAA Women's Basketball Championship.

"It's very disappointing," Carson-Newman coach Mike Mincey said. "That's back-to-back losses on our home floor in tournament play. Really poor offensive performances at home by us. Give Catawba a lot of credit. They came in with a great game plan. Clearly we didn't have our bunch ready to play especially against what we saw. They were very physical on the perimeter and did a good job trapping us and taking Braelyn [Wykle] away. Holding our leading scorer down to seven points. That was their key to take the ball out of her hands as best as they could. Our shooting woes in our home facility is like nothing I've seen the last couple years."

Carson-Newman (15-4) was limited to a 30-percent shooting clip from the floor in the game, its lowest of the year, matching a season low with a pair of three-pointers. Harli Smith (Jamestown, Tenn.) paced the club with 13 points adding five rebounds.

Lindsey Taylor (Maryville, Tenn.) added 10 points, six boards a career-high four blocks. Madison Bunch (Morristown, Tenn.) tallied 11 points and six rebounds in her final game in a Carson-Newman uniform.

Catawba (11-3) snapped a nine-game losing streak to Carson-Newman winning for the first time since Feb. 6, 2016 while improving to 6-3 in the series in postseason meetings.

Lyrik Thorne stole the opening tap and sprinted to the left block for a layup to get Catawba rolling to a 9-2 start to the game forcing five turnovers in the opening three minutes. C-N chipped within three but a 5-0 sequence saw the deficit swell to 14-6 with three minutes to play in the first frame. A late trifecta by Madison Bunch (Morristown, Tenn.) trimmed it to 17-13.

The Lady Eagles could not close the gap any closer in the second quarter seeing the Indians score the final five points to take a 34-23 lead into halftime. The 11-point margin was the largest halftime deficit of the year for Mincey's club.

Carson-Newman failed to score over a six-minute stretch in the third period allowing Catawba to take the largest lead of the season against the Lady Eagles at 20, 44-24, with 3:57 to go. The Lady Eagles answered with six straight, their biggest burst of the night but could not muster the burst the rest of the way.

In the fourth quarter, the Lady Eagles could not get closer than 14 points making four of 15 shots from the field. There was only one time in the period the club scored on back-to-back trips down the floor.

Friday night's contest was the first double-digit loss since Nov. 22, 2019 and the first by 10-plus at home since Feb. 20, 2016 when it dropped an 81-65 decision to Wingate. The 19-point differential is the biggest spread suffered by the group since losing by 27 at Catawba on March 4, 2015, a span of 174 games and 2,203 days.

Carson-Newman suffered its worst home loss since Feb. 9, 2008 when the program lost by 31 points to Mars Hill. It was the first time the club failed to score 50 points at home since Feb. 9, 2013 and fewest points at Holt Fieldhouse since a 63-47 loss to Wingate on Jan. 28, 2006.

Catawba was led by a double-double from Shemya Stanback who threw in a dozen points and added 10 rebounds. Lyrik Thorne added 12 points and eight boards and Sara McIntosh chipped in 11 points off of the bench.

"It was a successful season," Mincey said. "We won a regular-season SAC championship. We played well most of the year. There were some injuries down the stretch that hampered us a little bit and we never got our groove back. We have four sophomores in our starting lineup and return our entire starting lineup. We didn't shoot the ball well this year from the three and need to make plays and hit shots. We have a great recruiting class coming in with kids that can do that."

Stay tuned to cneagles.com and follow @CNwbasketball on Twitter for all of the latest news and notes regarding the Carson-Newman women's basketball team.

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