To get to the toughest part of its schedule, Appalachian State's women's basketball had t avoid stumbling during some of the weakest part.

That wasn't a problem Saturday. Appalachian State reached the 20-win plateau with a 79-60 victory over struggling UNC Greensboro in front of 952 fans at the Holmes Center.

Appalachian State (20-3, 14-1 SoCon) can concentrate on its stretch run to a second straight regular season championship. It starts Monday night against rival Elon (12-12, 8-7), which may not be near the top of the Southern Conference standings, but would like little else than to derail the Mountaineers' title chances.

“We've got this big game on Monday because Elon's always a battle,” Mountaineers coach Darcie Vincent said. “They come in and there's a very strong dislike with the two teams. Then we've got Davidson and they gave us our only loss of the season there. They're playing extremely well.”

Appalachian State does not play a team with a losing SoCon record the rest of the season. The Mountaineers plays at Davidson, a home against Furman, and closes out the regular season at powerful Chattanooga and tournament champs Samford.

The Mountaineers go into their game with Elon riding a nine-game winning streak, but with little wiggle room in case they lose. Davidson looms in second place with a 17-7 overall mark, 13-2 in the SoCon. Chattanooga (17-7, 12-3), Samford (9-5, 14-9) and Furman (12-11, 8-6) trail.

“It's exciting,” Mountaineers coach Darcie Vincent said. “It's ironic how everybody finishes up because Davidson is our travel partner. They're going to be at Chat and Samford playing when we are playing down there opposite of when we're playing Chat or Samford.”

“On one hand, it's kind of exciting because to not be where we want to be — it's amazing how we can grow and how much we can improve by conference tournament time,” Anna Freeman said. “The scary thing is we have played all these games and we're not there yet. Who knows what we're gong to see in the conference tournament. We might be all-stars by then.”

Appalachian State wasted little time dealing with UNC Greensboro, which sits in the SoCon cellar at 3-21 overall, 2-14 in the league. Appalachian State opened the game with a 15-2 lead. Though the Spartans closed to 15-10, the Mountaineers went on a 17-4 run to take a 32-14 lead that was never in any serious danger.

“We were working on this new zone defense,” Courtney Freeman said. “It was still kind of sloppy, but we did get a good run on them first and kept a comfortable lead the whole game.”

Appalachian State took its largest lead of 22 points twice, the final time being with 5:13 left in the game on a Maryah Sydnor foul shot that put the Mountaineers in front 68-46. Sydnor finished with 14 points and five rebounds.

Courtney Freeman made 7-of-11 shots from the field and finished with 19 points. Anna Freeman was 7-9 from the field and added 18 points. She also grabbed 10 rebounds and dished out six assists.

“It's about time I hit shots,” Anna Freeman said. “We got the lead, but we started playing the scoreboard and working on ourselves and we started taking the day off and that's something you can never do.”

Jazz Weaver came off the bench to score 13 points for the Spartans. Natalie Headley added 10 points, and Janae Stevenson grabbed a game-high nine rebounds.

Vincent wasn't completely satisfied with the victory, but liked how the Mountaineers never let the Spartans back in the game.

“We definitely had our moments of, ‘What were we doing,'” Vincent said. “We were focusing in, we weren't concentrating. That's not what you want ideally, but at the same time, we were able to sustain what we had. We shouldn't have 10 minutes of complacency and that's what we talked about in the locker room.”

 

 

Appalachian State 79, UNC Greensboro 60

UNC Greensboro (3-21, 2-14)

Folwell 0-2 0-0 0, Harmon 4-6 1-2 9, Patterson 3-11 1-2 9, Savage 3-4 1-2 7, Headley 5-10 0-0 10, Weaver 2-8 8-8 13, Carson 0-0 0-0 0, Richbow 1-2 1-1 3, Awuruonye 0-4 1-2 1, Stevenson 2-6 4-4 8. Totals 20-53 17-21 60.

Appalachian State (20-3, 14-1)

Sharkey 2-7 1-3 5, A. Freeman 7-9 2-3 18, Weldon 2-2 0-0 4, Sydnor 4-10 6-9 14, C. Freeman 7-11 5-6 19, Edwards 2-5 1-2 5, Taylor 0-1 1-2 1, Gary 2-3 0-0 4, Mallow 4-9 0-0 9. Totals 30-58 16-25 79.

Halftime score—ASU 40, UNCG 24. 3-point goals—UNCG 3-11 (Patterson 2-6, Weaver 1-2, Headley 0-1, Folwell 0-2), ASU 3-8 (A. Freeman 2-3, Mallow 1-5). Rebounds—UNCG 30 (Stevenson 9), ASU 38 (A. Freeman 10). Assists—UNCG 10 (Harmon 4), ASU 19 (A. Freeman 6). Turnovers—UNCG 22, ASU 18. Total fouls—UNCG 18, ASU 18. Fouled out—UNCG, Stevenson. Technical fouls—None. Att.—952.