HARROGATE, Tenn. -- The Lady Railsplitters (9-6, 6-4 SAC) renew the second-longest rivalry in program history on Thursday night when they host the Tusculum Pioneers (7-6, 5-5 SAC) in South Atlantic Conference women's hoops action at 5:30 p.m.
 
Lincoln Memorial and Tusculum have played 66 times since 1978, which trails only the LMU/Carson-Newman rivalry's 88 games for longevity, with the Lady Railsplitters compiling a 38-28 edge over that span. That margin is mostly due to a dominant 20-year run from 1984 to 2004, when the Lady Railsplitters went 28-3 against the Pioneers. Since that stretch, Tusculum has won 17 of the last 22 meetings, but the two teams have split the regular-season series in each of the past four seasons.
 
The Lady Railsplitters won for just the second time in nine trips to Goodman Gymnasium on Saturday afternoon, overcoming a six-point fourth-quarter deficit to defeat Catawba 64-60 in Salisbury, N.C. Britney Guy (Locust Grove, Ga.) scored a career-high 23 points and put Lincoln Memorial ahead for good on a three-pointer with 29 seconds left, while Shea Coker (Knoxville, Tenn.) tallied 15 points in 12 minutes off of the bench, connecting on 8-of-9 at the charity stripe. Megan Pittman (Liberty, Ky.) grabbed 10-plus rebounds for the sixth straight game with a game-high 16 boards.
 
The win kept the Lady Railsplitters in a four-way logjam for third place in the South Atlantic Conference standings at 6-4 in league play.
 
Tusculum sits just a game behind Lincoln Memorial in the SAC standings, as the Pioneers halted a four-game losing skid and improved to 5-5 in SAC play with a 74-55 win at Queens. Prior to that 19-point triumph, Tusculum had lost by two points at Coker, 21 points at Carson-Newman, 13 points at home against Newberry and 10 points at home versus Mars Hill.
 
The Pioneers are a hard-nosed defensive unit that leads the SAC in scoring defense by surrendering a mere 59.5 points per game while allowing opponents to shoot just 36.5 percent from the field and 28.6 percent from three-point territory. Tusculum has allowed an opponent to score 70-plus points only three times in 13 games this season: a 73-70 overtime win at King, a 74-66 loss to Virginia-Wise and an 80-70 loss to Mars Hill. 
 
Despite ranking second in the SAC in overall field-goal percentage with a 42.3 percent clip, the Pioneers average just 60.9 points per game. The three-point shot is simply not a function of Tusculum's system, as they rank dead last in the nation in total three-point attempts and made three-pointers this season with a 37-for-141 clip.
 
The Lady Railsplitters should have little trouble controlling the rebounding battle against a Pioneers team that averages 37.8 rebounds per game and carries a 0.8 rebounding margin. Lincoln Memorial is ranked fourth in the nation in rebounding margin with a plus 11.4 disparity while pulling down an average of 45.3 boards per game, the 14th-best mark in the nation.
 
The Lady Railsplitters could, however, have trouble getting anything going from long range against Tusculum's stingy perimeter defense. LMU is shooting 29.1 percent from three this season (seventh in the SAC), but is hitting 36 percent of its triples since the calendar flipped to 2016.
 
Tusculum senior guard Shynese Whitener, a native of Newton, N.C., leads the South Atlantic Conference in scoring with 19.5 points per game on 42.2 percent shooting coupled with 4.9 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game. Freshman Sydney Wilson is the only other Pioneer player averaging double figures with 11.4 points per game on a 41.4 percent clip, while fellow freshman Kasey Johnson is contributing 8.7 points and 6.9 rebounds per game with 51.1 percent shooting.
 
The Lady Railsplitters defeated the Pioneers 85-80 in last season's meeting at Tex Turner Arena in a back-and-forth game that featured 12 ties and 18 lead changes. Pittman paced Lincoln Memorial with 23 points and 15 rebounds. The win moved the Lady Railsplitters to 22-11 all-time against Tusculum in Harrogate.
 
Tip-off between Lincoln Memorial and Tusculum is slated for 5:30 p.m. on Thursday. Live stat, video and audio links are available at www.LMURailsplitters.com, the comprehensive online home of Lincoln Memorial University athletics. Fans can also listen along with Voice of the Railsplitters Rusty Peace at WLMU 91.3 The Gap.

Quick Hits
Whitener has scored at least 20 points in seven of her 13 appearances this season, including a 30-point outburst against Lenoir-Rhyne on December 16. She tallied 30 points against the Lady Railsplitters in last season's meeting at Tex Turner...Lincoln Memorial is 3-3 at home this season and 14-6 during the Krystal Evans era...Pittman leads the SAC and is ranked 16th in the nation in rebounds per game with 11.3. She ranks 25th in the country in double-doubles with eight. 

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