PREVIEW: Women’s Basketball and Bears clash to open December
Salisbury, N.C. —- The Catawba College women's basketball team continues its three-game home streak on Wednesday evening, hosting South Atlantic Conference rival Lenoir-Rhyne inside Goodman Arena at 5:30 p.m.
THE MATCHUP
- Who: Lenoir-Rhyne (3-4, 2-3 SAC) at Catawba (4-3, 2-2 SAC)
- Where: Goodman Arena, Salisbury, N.C.
- When: Wednesday, Dec. 4, 5:30 p.m
- How to Follow: FloSports ($) | Live stats
THE HISTORY
- Lenoir-Rhyne leads all-time series 48-45
- The Catawba Indians are 27-17 inside Goodman Arena in the series
- The teams are 3-3 in regular season meetings since 2021-22, with all victories coming on the teams' home courts
- Catawba has won the last four meetings in Salisbury
BALLIN' BROOKLIN
- Sophomore Brooklin Ingram dropped a career-high 21 points on 7-of-17 shooting in the Catawba Indians' most recent outing, a win over Lincoln Memorial on Saturday
- Ingram's previous career-high was set just a week before with 12 points at ninth-ranked Carson-Newman
- The Charlotte native had not scored in double figures in her collegiate career before those games
TESTED EARLY AND OFTEN
- Lenoir-Rhyne marks the third game against a top-three opponent in the SAC preseason poll to face Catawba's women in the first five games of SAC play
- The Catawba Indians split road games against the top two teams in the preseason poll in Carson-Newman and Anderson; LR was voted to finish third in the preseason coaches poll
- Catawba defeated LMU, who was voted one spot behind the Catawba Indians' fifth-place spot; Columbus State was also nationally ranked when Catawba faced the Cougars in the season opener
HUNDRED WATCH
- Head coach Terence McCutcheon would become the third head coach in Catawba history to reach 100 career wins with two victories this week
- After taking over in the middle of the 2019-20 season, McCutcheon currently holds a 98-29 overall record at the helm of the Catawba Indians
- Two wins this week would make McCutcheon (129 games) the fastest head coach to 100 wins in program history, surpassing John Duncan's 100 wins in 134 games
- His two SAC Coaches of the Year are already most in program history
SCOUTING THE BEARS
- Lenoir-Rhyne enters Wednesday's contest one game behind in the loss column to Catawba in the SAC standings
- The Bears earned SAC wins over Emory & Henry and UVA Wise with losses to Carson-Newman, Newberry and Wingate
- Sophomore Alexandra Merceron is enjoying a breakout campaign thus far, scoring a team-best 15.3 points per game on nearly 55 percent shooting from the field in 24 minutes per game
- Preseason All-SAC selections Blaikley Crooks and Emily Harman are next in scoring with 10.1 and 9.9 points per game, respectively; Crooks has a team-best 23 free throws made at an 89 percent clip while Harman has a team-high 13 three-pointers made at 43 percent
UP NEXT
- Catawba wraps up its three-game SAC homestand on Saturday, hosting Emory & Henry
- Due to finals week, the game times have been pushed later in the day with the women tipping at 5 p.m. and the men to follow at 7 p.m.