Lady Wildcat Season Update
MCKENZIE, Tenn. – The Bethel Lady Wildcats will enter the second portion of their season after the holiday break on January 3rd. The Cats sport an 8-5 overall mark and will re-enter MSC play at 2-3.
Bethel is 7-2 in home action. The Wildcats are 0-2 in road play and 1-1 in neutral site games.
The second half of the season will find Bethel playing nine road games. One of those is a make-up game with Tennessee Southern which will take place in Pulaski on February 2nd at 2 p.m. UTS postponed the December 16 game due to Covid protocols.
Three straight road affairs will tip-off the second half. The first game of the three road games will see the Cats facing Freed-Hardeman on January 3rd in Henderson. It will be the 33rd game between the two programs with FHU holding a 24-8 margin in the series. Bethel has won three of the last five matchups in the series.
After the three road games, Bethel returns home for four straight home games. Two of those outings will be against teams ranked in the top five in Campbellsville (1) and Thomas More (3). The Cats play eight home games the remainder of the season. The Lady Cats are 135-22 all-time in Crisp Arena.
All seventeen games remaining are conference games.
The Wildcats are averaging 69.1 points and yielding 57.3 points per outing.
Millie Bryant leads Bethel in scoring at 14.3 points per game. Bryant enters the second half with 1, 156 career points and 541 career rebounds. Earlier this season she became just the 10th Lady Cat to score 1,000 points or more and collect 500 rebounds or more. Ryann Roberts averages 13.8 points per game while Keely Morrow follows at 12.6 points per contest.
Bethel shoots 41 percent from the field while their opponents are at 36 percent from the floor. Bethel hits 34 percent of their three-point attempts. The opponents are at 31 percent. Bethel shoots 69 percent from the foul line while opponents shoot 66 percent.
Bethel has a 34-30 advantage in out rebounding their opponents per outing. Bethel is 7-0 when leading at the half.
The Lady Wildcats will return with Mickey Head back in the line-up. Head missed the last three games before the break. Head returns with 781 career rebounds and 231 career blocks. Bethel newcomer Jenna Foust is expected to be a big contributor transferring in from Kentucky Wesleyan. Aaliyah Brown is expected back after sitting out the first half due to an injury.
Coach Chris Nelson commented, "First and foremost it was nice to get through our first semester with without any major Covid setbacks. That doesn't mean we did not have our share of adversity, but every team is dealing with something, and it comes down to how you handle it." Nelson added, "We love the pieces we have but we have not had our entire team on the floor together yet this year. With that said I feel like we have gotten better each game and had different people step up. Keely (Morrow) and Millie (Bryant) both battled preseason injuries but battled back and both have been great for us this season. Our first MSC road trip we had to compete without Ryann (Roberts) and recently we just went out to Phoenix without our leader and post presence Mickey Head. Adding Jenna (Foust) back in the lineup will also give us much needed depth and more scoring options. So, we have had a lot of moving pieces in our line up and once we can get some consistency with our rotations, I feel like we will be more stable for the second semester, and we will head into the conference and post season play with some renewed confidence." Nelson concluded, "Our schedule is really challenging starting out with threw tough MSC road games and then we return home to play two top five teams in the nation. We will need to remain focused and be ready."
Nelson is in his 16th season as head coach of the Lady Cats. He is 337-160 and 15th in wins among active coaches in the NAIA.