Break should help Mercer women prepare for Samford

Susie Gardner’s Mercer women’s team hasn’t played its best on Saturdays after a Thursday Southern Conference game.

Gardner’s Bears will get to see how they can fare on a Saturday at 2 p.m. against Samford without a Thursday game before it. So far, the Bears have fared just fine throughout the season, sitting at 16-4 overall and 5-1 in conference play. Samford is 9-12 and 2-4.

“We’ve done some really good things,” Gardner said. “The Thursday-Saturday, we have not put a consistent Saturday game together, but this will be interesting to see what happens because there will be no Thursday game. And both us and Samford will have a bye week pretty much.”

Junior Kahlia Lawrence continues to lead the Bears with 18.8 points per game, while sophomore KeKe Calloway is averaging 13.6 points. Junior point guard Sydni Means is averaging 10.3 points and 6.7 assists and has a 3-1 assistant to turnover ratio.

And the Bears, who have won four straight games and are 9-2 at home, have gotten healthy at just the right time. Junior Alex Williams missed six games early in the season but is averaging 8.8 points and 6.8 rebounds, and Rachel Selph is getting back into rhythm after missing 11 games.

“For the most part, I feel pretty good about (the team),” Gardner said. “Having all of our post players back and kind of getting our rotation in, we’re not there, but we’re getting closer.”

This story was originally published January 27, 2017 at 11:35 AM with the headline "Break should help Mercer women prepare for Samford."