UNC Asheville Women's Basketball Travels to Charleston Southern on Saturday

CHARELSTON, S.C. - The UNC Asheville women's basketball team heads to the coast of South Carolina for a pair of Big South Conference games on the road. The Bulldogs play at Charleston Southern Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. Saturday's game will be broadcast locally on 880-AM with the pre-game show starting at 1:45 p.m. A video-stream of the game will be offered at www.uncabulldogs.com.

On Monday, Asheville travels to Coastal Carolina with that game starting at 7 p.m.

The Bulldogs (7-13, 3-6 BSC) will attempt to win their first road game of the season on Saturday. Asheville is 0-9 in enemy territory this year. The Bulldogs fell twice last weekend at home to Liberty (78-56) on Saturday and Radford (72-62). Asheville led at halftime of each game.

"We need to put 40 minutes together," said Asheville coach Betsy Blose. "We played well in both games last weekend in the first half but just couldn't sustain it for two halves."

The Bulldogs put together one of their best games on the year back on Jan. 9 when they slipped past Charleston Southern at Kimmel Arena, 75-68. Lindsey Thompson led Asheville with 26 points, while Kelli Riles added 11 points and 16 rebounds. Grace Blaylock hit a three-pointer with less than a minute to go to give the Bulldogs the lead for good.

"We played extremely well against Charleston Southern the last time we played but we're going to have to have an even better effort on Saturday," commented Blose. "They're a good basketball team that's been playing very well the past few weeks."

The Lady Bucs have a 12-8 overall record and have a 5-4 BSC worksheet heading into Saturday's game. CSU is led by Rachelle Coward with a 17.8 scoring average. LaKeitha Alston is averaging 15.7 points per game. Alston had 31 points against Asheville the first time the teams played.

Freshman guard Shonese Jones leads the Bulldogs in scoring with a 15.4 average. Lindsey Thompson has an 11.2 mark. Freshman forward Leah Wormack is averaging 10.3 points per game and shooting .503 from the field.

BULLDOG NOTES

UNC Asheville is looking for its first season sweep of the Lady Bucs since the 2008-09 season. The Bulldogs have lost four of their last five trips to CSU.

Senior guard Lindsey Thompson leads the Big South Conference in free throw shooting at .914. That figure is fourth best nationally. She is a perfect 24-of-24 from the line in BSC games.

Freshman guard Shonese Jones has been named Big South Freshman of the Week for two straight weeks. She tied a career-high against Radford Monday with 30 points. Jones is just the second player in the Division I era to have 30 points in a game twice in one season.

Head Coach Betsy Blose is seventh in the Big South Conference for wins with 125.

Lindsey Thompson had 976 career points and needs just 24 to become the 15^th player in school history to get to 1,000 career points.