Presbyterian College at Liberty
Monday, January 5 - 7 p.m.
Vines Center - Lynchburg, Va.
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PC Game Notes
CLINTON, S.C. - Presbyterian College (7-6, 2-2 Big South) makes its first road trip in 2015 for a Monday night game at Liberty ( at 7 p.m. The Blue Hose evened their Big South Conference record on Saturday with a 69-57 home win over UNC Asheville and will face a tough test in Liberty, who improved to 4-0 in the League by way of a 64-47 win over High Point. Both teams boast winning records and the Blue Hose will aim to snap a six-game streak of alternating wins and losses. Liberty has lost only one contest at home in the season opener against Charlotte, a four-game winning streak.
Liberty holds an 11-2 record over the Blue Hose in the all-time series, but two of PC's wins have come in the last four meetings. The two sides split the regular season games last year (the Blue Hose avenged a 59-51 loss in January with a 46-43 home win in February) but the Flames ended PC's season with a 67-42 result at the VisitMyrtleBeach.com Big South Championship in the tournament's quarterfinals. PC's first-ever win against Liberty came at the Vines Center on January 3, 2012 with a thrilling 51-49 win. Keyonna Allen grabbed nine rebounds in the last meeting.
Liberty sits atop the Big South Conference with a 4-0 League record, winning its last two games against UNC Asheville (67-55) and High Point (64-47) to snap a three-game losing streak that came against Power 5 schools. The Flames boast three players who average in double figures with Karly Buer (12.9 points), Ashley Rininger (11.2 points, 8.9 rebounds) and Simone Brown (10.4 points). Liberty enters Monday with the third-best offense in the Big South (66.5 points per game) and lead the League in blocked shots (5.62) and free-throw percent (.768)
Over the last five games, freshman Janie Miles leads the team with 9.8 points per game. Aianna Kelly's 6.6 rebounds pace PC in that category while Cortney Storey averages 2.8 assists per outing and Keyonna Allen has contributed 8.8 points and 6.2 boards during that span.
PC battled back from a 10-point game-opening deficit against the UNC Asheville Bulldogs to earn a 69-57 Big South Conference victory on Saturday afternoon. Cortney Storey matched her career-high with 15 points while Aianna Kelly added 14 and Rebecca Walker matched her season-best with 12. PC shot 51.3 percent from the field and cashed in at the free-throw line, going 25-for-32 (78.1 percent).
The Blue Hose boast the nation's third-ranked scoring defense through Saturday's games, holding opponents to an average of 48.5 points per game. Charlotte set a new season-high for opponents on December 18 with 66 points, but PC bounced back two days later to hold NC Central to only 33 points.
PC also ranks seventh in the country in field goal percentage defense, holding opponents to 32.7 percent of their shots. PC has held 11 of its 13 opponents to under 40 percent from the field this season after limiting UNC Asheville 37.3 percent (19-for-51) on Saturday. The team accomplished that feat 22 times last season with a 9-13 record, allowing over 40 percent only eight times. The Blue Hose also rank third in the country in three-point field goal defense, allowing only 21.4 percent of shots from distance.
PC boasts a 5-0 record at home after the team's Saturday win over UNC Asheville. The Blue Hose hold opponents to 29.1 percent shooting at the Templeton Center and average a rebounding margin of +13.4. The team has maintained a winning record at home in each of the last three seasons, beginning in 2011-12.
Sophomore Rebecca Walker leads the team with 14 blocks on the season and boasted a run of seven straight games with at least one block until December 20. Since then, Walker blocked two shots in games against Campbell and UNC Asheville to rank 11th in the Big South with 1.08 per game.
Miles played a combined 11 minutes over the season's first two games but has started the last 10, averaging 30.0 minutes in four Big South games. Miles leads the team in scoring with 9.2 points per game and scored 21 against NC Central on December 20. She averages 42.4 percent from three-point range and has hit 76.0 percent of her free throws.
Freshman Janie Miles was named the Big South Conference Freshman of the Week on December 8. Miles led PC in scoring for two straight games, tallying 11 points against Gardner-Webb and 15 against High Point.
Redshirt junior forward Keyonna Allen ranks second on the team with 8.9 points and 6.3 rebounds per game and has made 49.5 percent of her shots. Out of 13 games, she has led the team in points three times, blocks four times and rebounds six times. Allen went a perfect 7-for-7 in a win over Western Carolina and went 6-for-8 against Xavier on November 26. The redshirt junior enters the week with a career shooting percentage of 49.3 percent.
Sophomore guard Aianna Kelly finds herself in the upper echelon of Big South rebounders, hauling in 6.8 per game for 11th place as a guard. Kelly ranks 11th in offensive rebounds (2.46) and 13th in defensive rebounds (4.38) while ranking second on the team in assists (1.8) and third in steals (1.2).
Freshman point guard Cortney Storey has provided a steady hand for PC through the first third of the season. Storey ranks seventh in the Big South in assist/turnover ratio (1.11) and logs the most minutes of any freshman in the Conference, averaging 31.92 per game (seventh overall). Storey scored a game-high 15 points to help the Blue Hose to a win over UNC Asheville on Saturday.
PC has played seven players this season in their first season of collegiate basketball. Those seven (Janie Miles, Allie Wagner, Cortney Storey, Tia Mason, Elizabeth Landers, Jameka Braden and Kendra Talley) have contributed 51.0 of the team's points and 35.7 percent of the team's rebounds. In the Big South opener against Gardner-Webb, first-year players played 109 out of 200 minutes.
PC enters the week holding opponents to 21.4 percent of their three-point field goal attempts, good enough for the top spot in the Big South Conference and third in the nation. Allen went 1-for-18 against the Blue Hose and PC held UNC Asheville to 3-for-16 on Saturday.
Head coach Ronny Fisher returns for his seventh season as head coach. Fisher was named the Big South Conference's Coach of the Year in 2012-13, PC's first coach in any sport to achieve that honor. He ranks third in program history with 70 wins, standing three away from both Randy Randall (1977-84) and Byron Rucker (1984-89) in second.
PC returns home to host Radford in the first half of a Blue Hose hoops doubleheader at 5 p.m. The PC men's team follows with a game against Winthrop at 7:45 p.m.
