Lakers to Host Lander on Wednesday, USC Aiken on Saturday
The defending national champion Clayton State Lakers women’s basketball team is now 19-1 overall and 8-0 in the Peach Belt Conference after defeating Flagler 80-44 and Armstrong Atlantic 93-48 over the weekend. And now comes the real test… Lander University and USC Aiken, back-to-back, at the Clayton State Athletics & Fitness Center.
Clayton State will start the week by hosting arguably the second-best Division II team from 2010/2011, the Lander Bearcats. Laker fans will recall last year’s #1 vs. #2 game wherein Clayton State edged the then-top ranked Bearcats 83-81 in the Athletics & Fitness Center on a last second basket in the lane by Tanisha Woodward. The second Laker/Bearcat meeting of 2010/2011 came in the NCAA Southeast Regional finals, and produced a somewhat different scenario, a 76-60 Clayton State win. Lander, currently the first place team in the East Division of the Peach Belt, will certainly be ready on Wednesday, Jan. 25. Game time is 5:30 p.m., with the men’s game against Lander to follow.
As an added attraction to the Lander game, Clayton State senior Brittany Hall is only 10 points shy of becoming the eighth player in Laker women’s basketball history to reach 1,000 career points.
On Saturday, Jan. 28, the Lakers will welcome USC Aiken to the Athletics & Fitness Center for another doubleheader, with the women’s opening game starting at 3:30 p.m.(note the earlier than typical start time.) Although the Pacers were recently beaten by UNC Pembroke, they have been ranked as high as 11th nationally this season, and are the last team to defeat the Lakers, in the one-point overtime decision on their own floor in last year’s Peach Belt tournament. Indeed, that 73-72 result was the only game Clayton State lost during the national championship season. Prior to that meeting, Clayton State had defeated Aiken 66-60 at Aiken in a nationally-televised game in January 2011.