UNC Asheville Women's Hoops Host Liberty on Saturday at 2 p.m.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - The UNC Asheville Bulldogs look for their sixth straight home victory and remain unbeaten at Kimmel Arena in Big South Conference play on Saturday afternoon against pre-season favorite Liberty at 2 p.m. Saturday's game will be broadcast locally on 880-AM The Revolution with the pre-game show starting at 1:45 p.m. A video-stream of the game can be seen at www.uncabulldogs.com for a small fee.

The Bulldogs (7-11, 3-4 BSC) will have their hands full with a Lady Flame squad (11-7, 6-1 BSC) that is on a five-game winning streak. Asheville has not played since last Saturday when the Bulldogs downed Gardner-Webb, 74-62. Liberty played on Monday and easily dispatched Winthrop, 74-49.

Bulldog coach Betsy Blose knows her team will have to play well on Saturday to beat the Lady Flames.

"Liberty is very, very good," commented Blose. "They have a lot of height and play great defense. They just wear you down with their height and have some good scorers. We're going to have play extremely well to have a chance at winning on Saturday."

The Lady Flames have dominated the Big South over the past 15 years, winning 13 championships and advancing to post-season play 14 of the last 15 seasons. Liberty has been tough on the entire Big South and UNC Asheville is no exception. The Lady Flames have won 32 of the last 33 meetings between the teams. They have won 14 straight games against the Bulldogs in Asheville. The Bulldogs last win against LU in Asheville came on Feb. 8, 1997 when they recorded a 68-59 victory. Current Bulldog assistant coach Tiffany Gwynn was a player for Liberty that day.

Asheville played the Flames pretty tough last season. Liberty won at Justice Center 61-44 but the Bulldogs led at halftime, 29-27. The Lady Flames pulled away late at the Vines Center, 72-58 late in the regular season.

"We battled Liberty tough last year but we need to do better," said Blose. "Our team needs to rebound well and play with a lot of intensity for 40 minutes."

Asheville is being led in scoring by freshman guard Shonese Jones with 14.4 average. She's scored in double figures in 13 of the last 15 games and tallied 27 points against Gardner-Webb last Saturday afternoon. Jones has been named Big South Freshman of the Week twice this year and Player of the Week once. She scored 30 points at South Carolina State on Dec. 19, marking the first time a Bulldog player has scored 30 points since Vicki Giffin tallied 37 against UMBC in 1997.

Liberty is led by Big South Preseason Player of the Year Avery Warley. She is averaging 14.5 points and 10.7 rebounds per game. Devon Brown has a 17.3 scoring average and scored 27 points against the Bulldogs last year in Lynchburg.

Asheville returns home Monday night to face Radford starting at 7 p.m.

BULLDOG NOTES

Junior forward Kelli Riles continues to be a real force on the boards for the Bulldogs. She leads Asheville and the Big South in rebounding with an 11.4 average. Riles enters today's game ranked fifth nationally in that category. Kelli has accumulated 639 career rebounds and is eighth on Asheville's all-time list.

UNC Asheville is 7-2 at Kimmel Arena and won its last five games here.

Senior guard Lindsey Thompson is making a move on 1,000 career points. She has 966 points entering today's game as she's looking to become the 15^th player in school history to get to 1,000 points. Thompson became the school's all-time leader in three-pointers made back in November. She has knocked down 186 treys in her great career.

Grace Blaylock has made 37 field goals this year with 35 of them being three-pointers. She set a single-game school record with seven at Winthrop on Jan. 14.

Liberty has won 13 of the last 15 Big South Conference titles but one of two the Flames didn't win was by UNC Asheville as the Bulldogs claimed the 2007 crown.