Mercer’s KeKe Calloway (0) shoots a jumper at the end of a fast break. UTC’s Brooke Burns (23) looks on. The Mercer Bears visited the University of Tennessee Chattanooga Mocs in Southern Conference women’s basketball action at McKenzie Arena on January 27, 2018.
Mercer’s KeKe Calloway (0) moves the ball around the top of the circle. The Mercer Bears visited the University of Tennessee Chattanooga Mocs in Southern Conference women’s basketball action at McKenzie Arena on January 27, 2018.The Mercer women’s basketball team has had one prolific scorer for the past three seasons.
Now the Bears have two.
Junior KeKe Calloway has emerged as a viable option to senior Kahlia Lawrence, the school’s all-time leading scorer. Calloway is averaging 18 points per game this season, which is not only second on the team to Lawrence’s 19.5 but second in the Southern Conference as well.
The 5-foot-9 Calloway prepped at Mary Persons in Forsyth, Ga., about 20 minutes away from Mercer. During her time with the Bears, scoring has never been an issue, as she averaged 8.1 points in only 17.2 minutes per game as a freshman. As a sophomore she increased that to 12.3 points – which ranked second to Lawrence – while knocking down a team-high 68 3-pointers, including seven 3s and 25 points in the two-point SoCon championship game loss to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Those 3s came at a 29 percent clip, though. At times, she’d miss her first shot and lose the aggressiveness that made her who she was.
She hasn’t been that way this season, having already scored 40 in a win at Furman on Jan. 6, two days after a 34-point performance in a win at Wofford. The 74 points came on 68 percent shooting from 3-point range, with 19 makes.
The best part for the Bears is that her 78 3s made this season have come on 41 percent shooting from deep, which has opened even more lanes for Lawrence and point guard Sydni Means.
The combination of that plus experience at every position is why Mercer is 20-2, undefeated in the SoCon and holding a two-game lead over second-place East Tennessee State at the midway point of the schedule.
“KeKe has matured and grown as an athlete and a player in that she’ll keep shooting, ” Mercer coach Susie Gardner said after the team’s most recent win over UTC. “She’ll try to take it to the rim a little more instead of settling for 3s. It’s fortunate that we have a very good point guard in Sydni and a 2,000-point scorer in Kahlia. Sometimes when she’s off, KeKe’s on or vice versa, and on occasion they’re on at the same time, but obviously KeKe benefits from having Kahlia as a backcourt mate.”
VMI growth
The UTC men aren’t the only program fighting youth in a major way this season. VMI coach Dan Earl has a roster with seven freshmen having played, but he felt as though his team took a step in the right direction with Saturday’s 70-69 win over the Mocs at McKenzie Arena, the second consecutive season his team has won at UTC.
The Keydets (7-14, 2-8) have been in a number of close games this season, although as with most young teams the results usually have not gone in their favor. Three of their losses in league play have come by single digits, with one being a two-point loss at home to UNC Greensboro that came down to a pair of late free throws.
Earl’s hope is that his team is maturing.
“So much of this game is about confidence. Other parts of it is growth and getting better and all those things,” Earl said after Saturday’s win. “You try to do them day in, day out. We’ve been in some dogfights and haven’t come out on the right side.
“You can’t reach into your pocket and hand somebody experience: They’ve got to go through it, and that can be painful at times for everybody involved – players, coaches, everybody – but you’ve just got to stick with it and keep working, because no one feels sorry for you. We’ve been on the wrong side of a lot of these games, so you’ve got to keep working.”
Players of the week
East Tennessee State swept the weekly SoCon awards, with Desonta Bradford getting the men’s honor while Tianna Tarter claimed the women’s.
Bradford averaged 18.3 points, 7.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game in the Bucs’ 3-0 week, which extended their win streak to 13 games, while Tarter averaged 27 points on 62 percent shooting and 50 percent from 3-point range in two games. She had 33 points and nine rebounds in the Bucs’ 76-48 win over Samford. She added four steals, which moved her into fourth all-time in school history with 229 in her career.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.