Presbyterian College vs. High Point
Thursday, February 5 - 7 p.m.
Templeton Center - Clinton, S.C.
Live Stats | Live Video
PC Game Notes
CLINTON, S.C. - Presbyterian College (11011, 6-7 Big South) returns home to host the High Point Panthers (14-8, 10-3 Big South) on Thursday night in a Big South Conference clash at 7 p.m. The Blue Hose will aim to snap a two-game losing streak and topple the Panthers for the third straight time at Templeton Center. PC dropped a Monday road contest to Gardner-Webb by three points, 50-47, while second-place High Point looks to make it two in a row over the Blue Hose and build on Tuesday's 77-63 road win at Longwood. PC won four out of five but has dropped three out of its last four, a trend the team will hope to reverse this week.
PC trails High Point in the all-time series, 2-12, but those two wins have come in the Panthers' last two visits to the Templeton Center. The Blue Hose bested High Point by three points in 2013, 71-69, before handing the Panthers a 56-40 loss last February. High Point took down PC in the season's first meeting in December, edging the Blue Hose by five points–the smallest margin of PC defeat in the season series, 54-49. Janie Miles scored 15 points in the December game, hitting four of her six three point attempts. High Point's 54 points stood as a then-season low.
High Point rose to the upper echelon of the Big South by way of a five game winning streak in January but fall dropped two of their last four to Radford (61-58) and Liberty (58-41). No team blocks more shots in Big South games (6.08 per outing) and the team also ranks first in assists (14) and second in steals (9.69) in League contests. Stacia Robertson leads the team with 15.4 points and 10.0 rebounds per game.
Over the last five games, Keyonna Allen leads the team with 13.0 points while Aianna Kelly paces PC on the board with 5.4 rebounds per game. Kelly also holds the assists lead, with 2.6 per game.
Gardner-Webb overcame a six-point deficit in the final minutes of the game to push past PC, 50-47, on Monday night in Boiling Springs, N.C. The Blue Hose held Gardner-Webb to 29.2 percent shooting but the Runnin' Bulldogs went 16-for-27 from the free throw line to grab the win.
Keyonna Allen has led the team in scoring over the last five games and hitting double figures in four straight until Monday. She has scored in double figures 11 times this season and leads the team with 9.8 points and ranks second with 5.9 rebounds per game. Out of 22 games, she has led the team in points nine times, rebounds nine times, blocks eight times and steals seven times. The redshirt junior enters the week with a career shooting percentage of 48.4 percent.
The Blue Hose enter Thursday 10-3 when leading at halftime, 10-2 when outrebounding their opponent and 9-2 in the state of South Carolina. PC will look for its first win on a Thursday this year, going 0-2 on the day so far.
Head coach Ronny Fisher, in his seventh season at the helm, moved into sole possession of second place in PC history last Tuesday with his 74th career victory. He passed Randy Randall (1977-84) and Byron Rucker (1984-89) with 73 wins. Beth Couture holds the record, with 238 wins amassed from 1989 to 2002.
The Blue Hose boast the nation's second-ranked scoring defense, holding opponents to an average of 50.2 points per game behind only UConn. PC held Campbell to 42 points on January 27 and NC Central to 33 on December 20.
PC also ranks seventh in the country in field goal percentage defense, holding opponents to 33.6 percent. PC has held 19 of its 22 opponents to under 40 percent from the field this season after limiting Gardner-Webb to 29.2 percent (14-for-48) on Monday. 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 10th in the country in three-point field goal defense, allowing only 25.5 percent of shots from distance.
Sophomore guard Aianna Kelly (1.41) and freshman point guard Cortney Storey (1.22) rank second and sixth respectively in assist/turnover ratio in Big South games. Only two teams boast multiple players in the top 10, with High Point checking in at seventh and ninth.
PC next heads to Virginia for a Saturday afternoon test at third-place Radford at 2 p.m. The Blue Hose dropped their first meeting to Radford on January 8, 43-35.
