BUIES CREEK, N.C.-After taking a narrow loss to league-leader
Florida Gulf Coast and dropping Stetson 61-46 last week, Campbell
will head to Nashville, Tenn. for a pair of Atlantic Sun tilts,
beginning with Belmont on Thursday. Tipoff is scheduled for 5 p.m.
CST inside the Curb Event Center.
The Lady Camels' (9-7, 4-3 A-Sun) loss to FGCU (64-59 on Jan. 14)
was its third in a row, their longest losing streak of the season,
but held the Eagles to its second lowest point total of the year
and shot 50 percent for the second time this season.
On Saturday, Campbell trailed for most of the first half, but a Kate
Cloxton jumper with time winding down gave the Lady Camels a
20-19 lead going into the half. CU trailed by as many as eight in
the frame, but closed the final 10 minutes with a 15-6 run, capped
off by that Cloxton basket.
The Campbell run carried over to the second half, with the Lady
Camels reeling off another 11 unanswered points in the final
stanza, completing the 26-6 run. The CU lead ballooned to 24 at its
height, and the Lady Camels ended the afternoon with a 15-point
win.
Junior guard Courtney
Cannon has paced Campbell over its last pair of games,
averaging 15.5 points and 8.5 rebounds last week, while posting
15.7 points per game over her last three home games. Cannon posted
a CU season-high 19 points against FGCU and tallied her first
double-double in a Campbell uniform against Stetson with 12 points
and 12 rebounds.
Amanda O'Neill, a sophomore
guard, also notched a solid week, gathering 9.5 points, 6.5
rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.0 steals per game while shooting .429
(6-14) from the floor and .750 (3-4) from three-point range.
O'Neill was averaging 4.4 points per game coming into the week.
Freshman guard Tonisha
Baker, who gathered a season-high seven rebounds to go along
with six points against Stetson, leads the team with 10.1 points
per game, while adding 3.3 rebounds. Baker leads all A-Sun freshman
in scoring this season, and also ranks third overall in field goal
percentage with a .528 rate from the floor. Only Stetson junior
center Daphnee Frieson (.552) and FGCU senior forward Adrianne
McNally (.541) are ahead of Baker in the standings. In fact, Baker
is the only freshman or guard in the conference's top-10.
Campbell is also receiving recognition on the national scale, with
Cannon ranking 44th in the country in free throw
percentage at .846 percent. Cloxton, meanwhile, ranks
53rd in assists per game at 4.8. As a unit, the Lady
Camels crack the national top-100 in several categories, including
field goal percentage (79th, .423), assists per game
(79th, 14.6), steals per game (93rd, 9.4) and
three-point field goal percentage (100th, .335).
The Lady Camels will head to Belmont (9-7, 4-4 A-Sun) on Thursday,
a team that leads the league in defensive rebounds (28.56 per game)
and ranks among the A-Sun leaders in three point shooting (third,
7.19 per game).
Senior guard Amber Rockwell leads the team with 13.7 points per
game, good for fifth in the A-Sun, while sophomore forward Haley
Nelson posts 12.7 a game. Nelson, one of three players in the
conference to average a double-double, stands second in the league
with 10.5 rebounds per game. Junior guard Shaunda Strayhorn,
meanwhile, leads the conference at 4.94 assists per game.
The Lady Camels will complete their stay in Nashville on Saturday,
visiting Lipscomb (4-14, 2-6 A-Sun).
