JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – The Saginaw Valley State University women's basketball program dropped their final game of the holiday road trip to Carson-Newman with a final score of 57-51. Both teams made three three-pointers and eight free throws, the only difference was 23 made field goals for the Eagles to the 20 for the Cardinals.

SVSU was led by Aleshia Jones with 14 points while Emma Dziezgowski was also in double figures with 10. Megan McCalla and Lydia Meredith both has six points while Saniaa Walker led defensively with a career-high eight rebounds and two steals.

The entire game was back-and-forth. Carson-Newman made the first basket of the game before Dziezgowski hit a three for the Cardinals first lead. The Eagles answered back with a three of their own before a layup by Victoria Stafford tied the game 5-5. Jessica Massey made one from the charity stripe to put SVSU up 6-5 before two layups for the Eagles gave them a three-point lead. Jones hit a three to tie the game up before a 4-0 run with buckets from Tyler Scheid and Meredith put SVSU up 13-11. A 5-0 run for Carson-Newman closed out the first half with a three-point lead.

 A 4-1 run for the Eagles pushed the lead to six to start the second quarter. A Stafford layup and Jones free throw cut it to three. Carson-Newman responded with two free throws before Scheid and Lauren Sollom both made a layup to make it 22-21 Eagles. A 6-2 run for the Eagles extended their lead before buckets by Massey and Jones made it a one possession game once again. The teams traded buckets at the end of the second quarter as Carson-Newman headed into the locker room up 34-31.

Dziezgowski hit a shot out of the break to make it a one-point game, but an 8-0 run for Carson-Newman stretched it to 42-33. SVSU answered with a 6-2 run getting buckets from McCalla and Dziezgowski along with a free throw from Meredith and McCalla to cut the lead to five before a three pointer for the Eagles and a Walker layup ended the quarter with a score of 47-41.

A 5-2 run coming from a Jones layup and a Meredith free throw and layup cut the Eagles lead to three with half of the fourth quarter remaining. Carson-Newman answered with a 5-0 run with free throws before Dziezgowski drained a three to make it 54-49. After another Eagles free throw, Jones made a layup to cut the lead to four, but that was the last points for SVSU as the Eagles hit a bucket on their final possession to give us the final score of 57-51.

Women's basketball moves to 3-8 on the year and have one more non-conference game after Christmas. The Cardinals will head to Eastern Michigan on Friday, December 29 before jumping back into conference play in 2024. Tip off is set for 2:00 PM.