NEWBERRY- The Wolves take to the road as they face Lincoln Memorial on Monday night in their first South Atlantic Conference game since they played Anderson on Dec. 6 in a loss.
Newberry is coming off of a 56-40 victory over Francis Marion on Saturday night. The win snapped a three game losing streak for the Wolves who are 6-3, 3-1 on the season. Newberry is currently tied with Lincoln Memorial for third place overall in the conference in what is a very meaningful game early.
Lincoln Memorial is riding a three game winning streak and knocked off Coker 69-48. The Railsplitters, like Newberry, also lost a contest to Anderson 74-69 which are their only. The Wolves are 0-4 in their last trips to LMU but lead conference series, 14-3. No team has won a road matchup in the series since Newberry did in Feb. 12, 2011 in a 81-64 victory. The game is a matchup of the SAC’s top rated offense in LMU (73.9 ppg) and the top rated defense in Newberry (59.1 ppg). LMU also boasts the best rebounding margin in NCAA DII at 24.8 and on average outrebound Newberry by 18 boards a contest.
The Railsplitters had no preseason all-SAC selecitons but boast plenty of talent. Senior center Stephanie Smith, at 6-5, will be a tough matchup down low as she leads the team in scoring at 13.8 ppg to go along with 9.8 rebounds.
Sophomore guard/forward Megan Pittman is the other major reason for their wide rebounding margin as she averages a double-double with 11.6 ppg and 11.1 rpg
Lepaio moved into sole second place all-time at Newberry in career blocks with 116 after a block on Saturday. Newberry won their first game this year when trailing at halftime over FMU, they were 0-2 prior to that. It was also the first game Newberry won when failing to score 60 points and shooting less than 40 percent.
Haylee Lepaio recorded her third double-double of the season as she had 18 points and 13 rebounds to lead Newberry. Samantha Creed has scored in double figures in all nine games for Newberry this season but the Wolves are 4-0 when she scores 20 or more points.
The game is slated for a 6 p.m. start and can be heard on WKDK 1240 AM or on NewberryWolves.tv, Lincoln Memorial will also have a video feed.
