Women's Basketball Hosts Tennessee Temple For Last Home Game Before Christmas
December 17, 2014 | Women's Basketball
BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. - Gardner-Webb plays its last home game before Christmas on Thursday, when it hosts Tennessee Temple in Paul Porter Arena at 7 p.m. Thursday's matchup will be streamed via the Big South Network and will be broadcast on wgwg.org with Assistant Athletics Director for Media Relations Marc Rabb calling the game from press row.
Last Time Out
The Runnin' Bulldogs are coming off a tough 56-49 loss at Liberty on Saturday evening. Gardner-Webb struggled to execute on the offensive end as it shot a season-low 23.1% from the field, but despite the poor shooting played great defense holding Liberty to just 32.1% shooting, well under its season average of 40.6%. Jessica Heilig paced the GWU offense scoring 14 points and freshman Alexus Hill chipped in with 10 points, which was the second highest scoring game of her career, and Olivia Parker was a beast on the boards grabbing a game-high 9 rebounds.
Series Notes
This is the fourth meeting between GWU and Tennessee Temple since Gardner-Webb transitioned to the Division I level in the 2000-01 season. Gardner-Webb leads the series 3-0. All three matchups between the Runnin' Bulldogs and the Crusaders have been played in Paul Porter Arena. This will be the first meeting between the two teams in nearly two years, with the most recent matchup happening on Nov. 11, 2012 which was a 86-34 victory by GWU.
Lucky Number Six
The Runnin' Bulldogs were picked sixth in the 2014-15 Big South women's basketball preseason poll. Gardner-Webb was also picked sixth in the 2008-09 season, and hopes this season will be a repeat of the 08-09 season where they advanced to the conference tournament final and lost by one point (51-50) to Liberty.
Scouting Tennessee Temple
Tennessee Temple enters Thursday's matchup with GWU carrying an overall record of 3-5 and is currently on a two-game losing streak with losses at Kentucky Christian University (82-87) and Bryan Colege (52-62).
Senior guard Amanda Rector leads the Crusaders in scoring with 18.3 points and is second with 6.7 rebounds.
TTU averages 76.8 points per contest and hauls down nearly 43 rebounds.
Notes
- The Runnin' Bulldogs hold a 15-21 record against schools that are located in the state of Tennessee. The Runnin' Bulldogs have faced Belmont, East Tennessee State, and Lipscomb where they have .500 records against ETSU (3-3) and Lipscomb (8-8)
- The last time GWU had a record of 3-6 through their first nine games of the season was 2006-07, where they ended the season 14-17 overall and advanced to the quarterfinals of the A-Sun tournament.
