Road trips are a lot more fun after victories.
The Elon women’s basketball team won two games away from home this week, defeating Georgia Southern University by 30 on Saturday and taking a 63-50 decision over the College of Charleston Monday night. It made the hours long journey back to campus much more enjoyable than if the result had been different.
“It’s a long trip if you lose,” said junior forward Kelsey Evans. “The fact that we won two makes it a pretty good trip.”
The Phoenix will try to extend the good vibes with its final two games of the season, home dates against Wofford College and Western Carolina University Feb. 25 and 27, respectively.
The game against the Western Carolina will be the last at Alumni Gym for five Elon seniors, including starting point guard Aiesha Harper.
“We want to finish strong every game and we want to finish the season out strong, too,” Harper said.
Right now the Phoenix (14-13, 10-8 Southern Conference) is positioned in fifth place in the conference standings. Two wins at home would guarantee Elon one of the first round byes given to the top five teams in the conference.
“We need some wins,” said head coach Charlotte Smith. “We need both of these wins in terms of conference standings, so we’re going to take it one game at a time but do what we need to do to finish strong.”
To finish strong, Elon must complete two season sweeps. The Phoenix won by six against the Terriers Dec. 19 and bested Western Carolina 51-45 Jan. 18.
“I don’t know if it’s necessarily a challenge (to beat a team twice),” Harper said. “We just have to execute offensively, defensively and do the things that we did special in the game that we beat them in.”
In the first matchup with the Terriers, Elon and Wofford engaged in a back-and-forth affair that saw the lead change 19 times. But junior guard Ali Ford hit a 3-pointer with 2:50 left that gave the Phoenix the lead for good and enabled her team to escape Spartanburg with a victory.
Elon blew a nine-point lead in its visit to Cullowhee and was faced with a four-point deficit with 6:45 to go. But Ford made a layup, Harper hit a triple and the Phoenix once against ducked out of harm’s way.
Elon’s regular season will end one of two ways. There’s always the possibility of a letdown — a chance that the Phoenix won’t end its two-game home losing streak — that leaves them without a first round bye.
Then there’s the result the team is looking for. A couple of wins will make it a lot easier to survive and advance once the conference tournament rolls around March 2-5 in Asheville.
For the seniors, they sure would enjoy a final bus ride home from Asheville with a Southern Conference championship trophy in tow.