SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Skidmore College women's basketball head coach Jessica Turner will return to a familiar place this Saturday, leading the Thoroughbreds in a road matchup with Middlebury in a 2 p.m. tip-off.
 
Turner spent the last five seasons as the lead assistant at Middlebury, helping to guide one of the NESCAC's upper echelon teams. She's in her first season at the helm of the Skidmore program.
 
The Thoroughbreds (2-6) come off a narrow loss to Sage in its last game, falling by a 69-68 score. Senior guard Haley English led the team with 14 points, six assists, and six rebounds. Junior forward Taylor Ong and sophomore guard Sydney Tsutsui each added 13 points. Freshman guard Kate McCarney returned to the starting lineup and had her second straight game scoring in double figures with 11 points, adding one steal and one blocked shot.
 
The offense has come around for the Thoroughbreds in the last two games, shooting 47 percent from the field. On defense, Skidmore has been stingy at defending the arc, with opponents shooting a Liberty League-low 24.3 percent from 3-point range.
 
English leads the team in scoring at 9.8 points per game, shooting a team-best 81 percent from the free throw line. Junior guard Jessica Centore is next at 7.9 points per game and leads the team in shooting at 42.4 percent from the field. Centore is also a solid on-ball defender, second in the league with 2.6 steals per game. Tsutsui is third with 7.4 points per game and McCarney has upped her scoring average over the past two games to arrive at 5.9 points per game. Ong leads the team in rebounds with 6.8 caroms per game, followed by junior center Lilly Berg (6.6).
 
Middlebury comes into the weekend with a perfect 7-0 record, having defeated Plattsburgh 80-70 in its last contest. The Panthers average 75.4 points per game on the year and sports an impressive average margin of victory (31.5) and rebound margin (20.6).
 
The Panthers are a veteran bunch, led by Maya Davis on the offensive end, scoring 12.9 points per game. She's fifth in the nation in field goal percentage, making 69.2 percent of her shots. She's followed by double-digit scorers Colleen Caveney (10.7) and Catherine Harrison (10.0). Davis also leads the team in rebounding (6.6), while Kira Waldman and Betsy Knox share the team lead in assists per game (2.4).
 
Skidmore and Middlebury have had hotly-contested games over the past four years, with each team winning at home. Skidmore's 55-49 victory in Saratoga Springs last season was the largest margin of victory for either team since the Thoroughbred's 63-50 win in the 2013-14 season.