Turnovers Plague Eagles in 94-78 Loss at Mars Hill

MARS HILL, N.C. — The Carson-Newman men’s basketball team committed a season-high 27 turnovers, as the Eagles dropped an 94-78 decision to Mars Hill on Saturday afternoon in South Atlantic Conference action at Stanford Arena.

With the loss, C-N falls to 6-7 on the season and 1-2 in the conference, while the Lions improve to 6-6 and 2-1 in SAC play.

“It takes something out of everybody when you turn the ball over like that,” C-N head coach Dale Clayton said. “We were down five at the half and talked a lot about turnovers and transition defense. If we could get those two corrected and keep scoring on offense, we would be ok, but we didn’t get them fixed and we stopped scoring.”

Junior guard J.J. Wesley (Mobile, Ala.) netted 18 points, including four 3-pointers, to lead the Eagles, while Darron Maxtion (Huntsville, Ala.) tossed in 17 points and Jordan Dixon (Clinton, Tenn.) finished with 15 points.

Mars Hill guard Danny Sanders (Shelby, N.C.), who leads the league in scoring, fired in a game-high 30 points, including six 3-pointers, to pace four Lions in double figures.

Dion Malachi (Shelby, N.C.) added 15 points, while Jarred Pickering (Queensland, Australia) and Stoney Polite (Morganton, N.C.) pitched in 12 and 11 points, respectively.

The teams battled to a 12-12 tie after six minutes of play, but Mars Hill built an 11-point lead with a 14-3 run capped by a Robin McElroy layup at the 8:04 mark.

C-N bounced back and outscored Mars Hill 18-10 during the next six minutes. Wesley drained a 3-pointer from the corner with 2:35 remaining to trim the Lions’ lead to 36-33.

The Lions had 44-36 advantage with 28 seconds left, but Wesley answered for the Eagles once again as he knocked down his third 3-pointer of the half to cut Mars Hill’s lead to 44-39 at the break.

Mars Hill took control of the game in the second half. After a Wesley 3-pointer pulled the Eagles to within 54-49, the Lions fired back with a 14-2 run to take a 68-51 lead with 11:44 left in the contest.

C-N was unable to pull closer than 15 points the rest of the way

The Eagles return to action at home on Wednesday in a SAC matchup against Wingate. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. at Holt Fieldhouse.