DURHAM, North Carolina — The University of Maryland Eastern Shore begins its final road trip of the regular season Saturday (Feb. 22) at North Carolina Central. This will be the second meeting between the two squads after the Hawks (5-19, 2-9 MEAC) pulled out a 65-63 win at home on Jan. 13. The Eagles (8-16, 5-6 MEAC) seem to be playing better as the season has gone on and are coming off an 86-80 double-overtime win at North Carolina A&T State on Monday.
"They are really playing well and I was impressed in what I saw from them at A&T," Hawks coach Fred Batchelor said. "They seem to be playing really well together. They have some junior and senior that seem to know and understand the system and what they want to do. They are playing off each other very well and we are going to really put up a lot more resistance defensively in our schemes and particularly to keep them off the backboard and out of the paint."
Senior Paulina Afriyie (13.9 points, 8.9 rebounds) and junior Kieche White (13.7 points, 2.4 assists, 1.8 steals, 1.1 blocks) lead the way for the Eagles.
But the continued emergence of 6-foot-1 freshman Anissa Rivera has been a problem for opponents. Rivera, who scored a career-high 26 points against the Aggies to go with 12 rebounds, is averaging a team-leading 9.7 boards per game, 2.5 blocks and 12.2 points per game.
Batchelor said last time the two teams met, the Hawks went to a trap at one point in the game catching the Eagles a little off guard and making things difficult for them in terms of getting to a comfortable place in their offense.
"We are looking at doing things like that because when they are playing at a comfort level that allows them to do what they want to do, they are very successful, so we are looking to do some things to keep them off balance," Batchelor said. "For us it is going to be important for us to be productive offensively."
The Hawks have not had a consistent scorer for the entire season and have no player averaging double digits in scoring at this point. Senior Adrienne Jones (Baltimore, Maryland) has reached double digits in scoring each of the last four games including a career-high 25 in Monday's loss to Florida A&M.
"With our team — without having a dominant player — it has been our bench that has been the thing that has helped us be successful," Batchelor said. "I expect that to continue. It's not like we have a group of starters where we have two or three double digit scorers."
