After a brutal week on the hardwood, the Elon Phoenix must win on the road this week in order to gain ground in the Southern Conference standings.
Elon plays Georgia Southern Feb. 18 and the College of Charleston Feb. 20., in rematches of Phoenix wins earlier this year. But the team is trying to find confidence after two tough defeats to Davidson College and Appalachian State University.
The two losses concluded series sweeps of the Phoenix (12-13, 8-8 Southern Conference). First, sloppy passes led to 21 Elon turnovers in a 78-51 thumping against Davidson.
Elon held January’s SoCon Player of the Month Sophia Aleksandravicius scoreless in the first half, but the 6-foot-4 forward exploded for 13 points in the second half, keying a 21-0 Wildcats run that put the game away.
“Games like this happen every now and then,” head coach Charlotte Smith said. “We’ll just learn from it and move on.”
The Davidson loss left junior Kelsey Evans frustrated, unsure of how it all transpired.
“They were hitting shots,” Evans said. “We weren’t defending. We weren’t rebounding. The whole game we were kind of flat.”
The script remained quite the same two nights later against the Mountaineers. Appalachian State beat Elon 84-68 as the Phoenix allowed the Mountaineers to shoot 50 percent from the field, shooting just 40.6 percent themselves.
The Phoenix sits tied in fifth place in the conference with Furman University. While Elon maintains a comfortable three-and-a-half game lead over seventh place Western Carolina, the Phoenix can still realistically climb into fourth with good results over the final four regular season games.
“We have a lot of work to do before we go to Asheville (for the Southern Conference Tournament),” junior guard Ali Ford said. “I think these last (four) games are really important to get to where we want to be.”
The last time Elon played Georgia Southern, a game-winning layup with 3.6 seconds left by senior Aiesha Harper kick-started the Phoenix on a four-game winning streak. Elon will be looking for a similar result — perhaps minus the dramatics on Saturday in Statesboro, Ga.
Elon used a strong second half to propel itself to victory in its Jan. 15 game against Charleston. The Phoenix trailed by nine points early in the second half but was able to rally and take the lead in the final minutes thanks to key shots from Ford and freshman Sam Coffer.
Gone is the streak that saw the Phoenix win six games in a period of eight games. Elon is back on its heels, trying to recapture the magic that it found the last time it faced Georgia Southern.