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ROCK HILL, SC— The women's basketball team is riding a two-game win streak as it heads to Conway, SC to face Coastal Carolina in its Big South Conference opener, Saturday afternoon at Kimbel Arena.

Winthrop is coming off an 88-74 road victory over Mercer behind a career-high 32 points from sophomore Dequesha McClanahan. It was the third road win of the season as the Lady Eagles are 3-3 on the road this year.

The Lady Eagles are looking to open up conference play with a win for the fifth straight season and just the 10^th time in school history. Winthrop is 9-15 all-time in conference openers and 3-8 all-time when opening on the road. Winthrop's has won its last two openers on the road.

Offensively the Lady Eagles are rolling as they've averaged 83.5 points per game in the last two games and 75 points per game over the last five games, where Winthrop is 4-1 during that stretch.

McClanahan not only scored 32 points in the win at Mercer, but she dished out eight assists. It was the seventh time this season she's had eight or more assists in a game and the fourth time in the last five games. She's leading the team in scoring (19.4), assists (6.8) and steals (2.3). Her scoring and assists average are tops in the Big South.

In her freshman season, McClanahan enjoyed success against Coastal Carolina having averaged 16 points per game in two meetings. She also averaged 3.5 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 2.5 steals. She shot 44 percent from the floor as well.

Junior Diana Choibekova and freshman Samiya Wright are also having good seasons offensively as they average 16.6 and 12.4 points respectively. Choibekova is leading the country in three-pointer made with four per game and is coming off a season-low seven three-point attempts at Mecer. She still knocked down four threes to maintain her average. Winthrop as a team attempted a season-low 11 three-pointers. The previous low was 19 against Stetson at home on Nov. 20.

Wright is coming off a 16-point performance in which she was 6-for-10 from the field and has now scored in double-figures in 10-of-12 games. She's shooting 46 percent from the floor and 51 percent from behind the arc (23-for-45). She's also leading the team in free throw percentage (90%).

Over the last five games, the offense hasn't been the only thing going well for the Lady Eagles as they've picked things up defensively and are allowing just 60.6 points per game over that stretch. Turnovers have also gone down as they've given the ball away an average of just 13.8 times per game.

Another bright spot for Winthrop has been the resurgence of senior TaQuoia Hammick as she missed the first five games of the season with an injury. She's starting to get settled and has averaged 7.8 points and 6.2 rebounds while shooting 82 percent from the floor coming off the bench in the last five.
Winthrop faces a Coastal Carolina team that has played six of its nine games at home this season, where it is averaging 73.3 points and allowing just 51.7. The Chanticleers are 7-2 on the year and have won three of their last four games, including a 61-56 victory over USC Upstate on Thursday night.

Coastal features a balanced scoring attack as five different players have led the team in scoring this season and seven players average six or more points per game. Shatia Cole, a freshman guard, leads the team in scoring with 11.6 points per game. Shanika Maddox and Angelica Henry also average double figures. Maddox is second on the team with an average of 10.1 and is shooting 46 percent from the floor. Henry is averaging 10 points per game and returned to action against USC Upstate after missing a couple of games.

Coastal is a young team sporting six freshman, five sophomores and just three seniors on the roster. It might be a young team, but it is a team that gets after it defensively and ranks in the Top 50 nationally in scoring defense (54.9). That average is second best in the league behind Presbyterian College. The Chanticleers are ranked 11^th in steals per game and are forcing 23.8 turnovers per game. Seven different players have double-figures in steals with Cole leading the team with 19.

This will be the 75^th meeting all-time between the two schools with Winthrop holding a slight advantage in the all-time series, 38-36. Winthrop has won three of the last five meetings, including the match-up in Conway last season, 64-48. However, this will be just the fourth time the two teams have ever opened up conference play against each other, with Coastal owning a 2-1 advantage.