March 3, 2007
North Charleston, S.C. - Winning games in Wednesday's quarterfinal round and again on semifinal Friday, top-seeded Western Carolina and No. 2 seed Chattanooga both advanced to Sunday afternoon's Southern Conference Women's Basketball Championship. The two squads that shared the 2006-07 regular season championship will tip at 2:00 pm on Saturday at the North Charleston Coliseum with the winner earning the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
Fans can follow all of the action from the Catamount Sports Network on WWCU-FM, Power 90dot5 in Cullowhee, or online at www.CatamountSports.com. Air time is 1:30 pm with Daniel Hooker and Steven Crumpler on the call. Fans can also find live stats and streaming audio/video by logging onto www.SoConSports.com or SoCon.tv.
Saturday's women's championship will be aired on Comcast/Charter Sports Southeast (CSS) (check local listings). Additional stations carrying the broadcast include: WGSR-TV 39 in Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point, N.C.; WMYW-TV 47 in Wilmington, N.C.; WDRL-TV 24, Roanoke-Lynchburg, Va.; and WYAT-TV 40 in Martinsville, Va.
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME NOTES:
WESTERN CAROLINA vs CHATTANOOGA: Western Carolina completed its first-ever regular season sweep of the defending champion Lady Mocs, winning 80-72 in overtime at Chattanooga (1/13) and 75-66 before a CSS television audience at home on Feb. 10 ... Until this year, WCU had never won back-to-back games against Chattanooga ... Western's first win over Chattanooga this year snapped an eight-game losing skid to the Lady Mocs ... UTC leads the all-time series 9-51 ... This marks the second time that Western and Chattanooga have met in the SoCon Championship game with the Lady Mocs winning 86-68 in the finals in the 2003-04 season ... Western is 0-2 versus Chattanooga in the North Charleston Coliseum all-time ... This year, Western Carolina is 9-3 in games played on Saturday.
LADY CATAMOUNTS ADVANCE TO SOCON FINALS: Western Carolina is making its third all-time appearance in the Southern Conference tournament finals ... WCU fell to Chattanooga three years ago (2003-04) at the North Charleston Coliseum ... Western has played for the conference championship in two of the past three seasons, coming up just four-points shy from advancing a year ago against Chattanooga in the semifinals.
UPDATING WCU IN THE SOCON TOURNAMENT: Western is now 2-0 all-time as the No. 1 seed ... WCU remains unbeaten against No. 5 seeds (3-0) with two wins over Georgia Southern (2005 & 2007) and Appalachian State (1984) ... WCU improved to 14-22 all-time in the post-season event ... Kellie Harper improved to 16-1 all-time in the SoCon Tournament, 7-1 as the head coach at Western Carolina.
WCU INDIVIDUALS IN SOCON TOURNAMENT: Brooke Johnson currently leads Western with 15 points per game in tournament play, adding 7.5 rebounds per game ... On the strength of her 21 points on Friday, Ashley Pellom is averaging 13.5 points, 3.5 assists and 2.5 steals, with Lauren Powell, Chevon Keith and Jessika Johnson averaging 9.5 ppg apiece ... Keith leads Western with a 13.5 rebound per game average. 70 IS WESTERN'S MAGIC NUMBER: Western Carolina improved to 16-1 this season when scoring 70-or-more points in a game ... the Lady Catamounts' lone loss when eclpising the 70-point barrier was the home overtime loss to Georgia Southern.
WESTERN SETS SCHOOL-RECORD WITH 23RD WIN: Western Carolina secured its third 20-win season in school history with a road win at the College of Charleston back on Feb. 19 - and on Wednesday, the Lady Catamounts made more history, securing their 22nd victory of the season against Furman in the quarterfinal round of the `07 SoCon Championship and win number 23 against Georgia Southern on Friday.
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