HELENA, Mont. – The Carroll College women's basketball team has played five of their last six games on the road but Thursday, they begin a stretch of five games of the next at home, including three in five days.
The Saints host Montana Tech Thursday and No. 2 Lewis-Clark State Friday. Carroll is 14-8 on the year and 4-6 in Frontier play but have won two of their last three.
Cassidy Hashley is averaging 15.4 points and 9.6 rebounds per games to lead the Saints and
Bailey Pasta is second on the team with 10.8 PPG.
Montana Tech won the first match up 66-55 in Butte. The Diggers are 11-11 on the year and 5-6 in Frontier play.
"It is just big game after big game in this conference," head coach
Rachelle Sayers said. "With a win on Thursday we would be in a tie with Tech, which at this point in the season is huge. We need to take each game, one game at a time. We can't look too far ahead, we can't get too high or too low, we just have to keep getting better every day. That is our focus."
Carroll controlled the first meeting early but struggled in the second half in the loss. Sayers knows that her team has a long way to go if they hope to make it back to the NAIA Tournament for the fourth time in five years and hopes this home stretch will accelerate the improvement.
"We know we are better than we were when we played in Butte," Sayers said. "We are working hard to clean up some of the things that have been haunting us. Turnovers and mistakes late in the game is just something we can't have and our players have been very committed to making the necessary changes. We are excited to be home for a good stretch and hope we can string a few together and get back in the race. I've said it before, but I will continue to say it because it is so true. There is not a more competitive conference in the country, we just need to keep competing and know that this is a long season and we have a lot of basketball left to go. "
Friday the Saints meet the red-hot Warriors, one of two remaining undefeated teams in NAIA DI. Three LCSC players average double figures led by Brittany Tackett with 15.09 points per game.
The Saints will play the Warriors on their second day of a back-to-back while. It will be the first game of the weekend for LCSC.
"LC will come in here fresh and on a 23-game win streak," Sayers said. "They are ranked No. 2 in the country and they deserve it. They can score 100 on any team on any given night if you aren't ready for their speed. They have five scorers on the floor at all times and so defensive focus and intensity is extremely important."
In the first meeting, the Saints were right in the game early in the fourth quarter before LCSC closed on an 18-9 run to earn the 57-42 win.
"I thought we did a pretty good job defensively against them for about 35 minutes," Sayers said. "We chased them off the three-point line and limited the quick easy shots they live off of but we didn't do a very good job protecting the paint. We will have to make some adjustments on how we guard this time around. In the end, we will have to make shots. They will spread us out with their zone, we will have a lot of good looks and an opportunity to get to the offensive glass so we need to take advantage of those opportunities. It is a huge challenge, but one we will definitely be looking forward to."
Saturday's game, Carroll Athletics will celebrate National Wear Red Day for the American Heart Association. People are encouraged to wear red and there will be special giveaways, including a special red Carroll College t-shirt.
Both games are scheduled to take place at 5:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on 94.9 FM ESPN Montana Radio. A live video stream will be available via the Carroll youtube channel and live stats will be available via Dakstats.
