Women's Basketball to Battle Anderson in SAC Tournament Quarterfinal
Mars Hill reaches the SAC Tournament as the eighth seed and will face Anderson on Wednesday at 7 p.m
MARS HILL, N.C.- The Mars Hill women's basketball team has qualified for the South Atlantic Conference Tournament after finishing with a 9-13 league record and an 11-16 regular season mark. As the No. 8 seed, the Lions will travel to 2014-15 regular season champion Anderson University for the quarterfinal round. The Trojans enter the contest with a 23-3 overall record, a 20-2 South Atlantic Conference mark and a 16-game winning streak.
Mars Hill will look to become the first eight seed in SAC Tournament history to defeat the top seed in the quarterfinal round. Coincidentally, Anderson is the only team to come within five points of pulling off the major upset as the Trojans lost 62-61 at Tusculum in 2011.
The top-seeded Trojans secured a series sweep, defeating the Lions 94-85 in overtime on Jan. 14 in Abney Athletic Center and earning a 71-58 victory over Mars Hill in Stanford Arena on February 11. In the last contest at Anderson, Mars Hill got a then-career high 39 points from senior Camille Glymph. Trailing by 12 points with 12:26 to play, the Lions forced overtime as Glymph made three free throws with less than a second remaining after being fouled while attempting a 3-pointer that would have tied the contest at 76. Anderson would outscore the Lions 18-9 in the extra frame.
Glymph, the reigning AstroTurf SAC Player of the Week, enters Wednesday's game having scored 35 or more points in her last two games. The Greenville, S.C. native scored a SAC record-tying 45 points in an 88-42 victory over Brevard and scored 37 points in a 72-66 loss at Lenoir-Rhyne on Saturday. Glymph is the leading scorer in the league and was third among all NCAA Division II players as of the last statistical release.
Mars Hill is far from a one-woman band, as the Lions have two additional players that average double figures in scoring. Sophomore Paige Chavis averages 12.1 points per game and is ninth in the league with 886 minutes played. Junior Kelsey Espinosa averages 10.1 points per game and 6.7 rebounds per game. Espinosa is eighth in the league with 180 total rebounds. Redshirt sophomore Genice Lane is ninth in the league with 116 defensive rebounds and is eighth in the league with a team-leading seven rebounds per game despite missing a portion of the season.
The winner of the Mars Hill/Anderson gave will face the No. 4 Catawba/No. 5 Carson-Newman winner in the SAC Tournament Semifinals at Noon on Saturday at Timmons Arena in Greenville, S.C.
