Good Morning Monarchs. The road can be a tricky place.

And we’re not even talking about construction, traffic or other drivers, we’re talking about playing in front of the road crowd.

The ODU women’s squad faced that task on Thursday night and enjoyed themselves a nice little chicken dinner thanks to a stifling defensive effort once again.

What all do we have stirring in today’s edition of the Brew? Check it out!

🏀 Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner
🇺🇸 Just Getting Started
📈 Poll Position
👑 And much, much more!

⚪️ WHITE OUT CHARTWAY!

Get ready folks! Let’s White Out Chartway!

We’ve got tickets! We’ve got t-shirts! We’ve got it all! Secure your spot today, you don’t want to miss this one!

📈 STOCK UP

🔼 Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner. Defense has been the calling card for this year’s ODU women’s basketball team.

Offensively, they’ve been a balanced attack all season and those two cogs were called upon once again on Thursday night as the Monarchs used a strong second-half to bring home a 57-53 road victory over former CAA foe, Delaware.

Six different players had at least seven points in the game with both Kaye Clark and En’Dya Buford leading the Monarchs with nine apiece. Clark added six rebounds and five assists for an all-around performance.

ODU ratcheted up the defense, forcing UD into 25 turnovers and holding them just 28-percent from long range.

The Monarchs are now 8-0 heading into the finals week before returning to the court on December 17th against VCU.

🔢: Inside the Boxscore

🔼 Just Getting Started. With the regular season over, the postseason honors have started to pour in.

For ODU’s Jason Henderson, he’s just getting started after he earned three All-American accolades this week. He is the first Monarch since 2012 and punter Jonathan Plisco to earn back-to-back All-America honors.

Henderson was named a CBS Sports second-team All-American, The Athletic second-team All-American and College Football News first-team All-American. In addition, he was selected as The Touchdown Club of Richmond’s Linebacker of the Year.
 
The Dingmans Ferry, Pa. native leads the country with 170 tackles and 14.2 tackles per game and is third in the country with 19.5 tackles for loss. He is trying to become the first FBS player to lead the country in tackles in consecutive years since Luke Kuechly of Boston College did it in 2010-11.
 
He already owns the ODU career record with 436 tackles, the second most by an active FBS player only trailing Iowa's Nick Jackson, who has 445 career tackles.

🏆: More On Henderson’s Award-Winning Season

🔼 Poll Position. Heads have been turned. Attention has been drawn. The Monarchs are for real.

Off to the best start since 1998, the ODU women’s basketball team found itself ranked among the top non-power 5 teams in the country this week.

Each week throughout the season, CollegeInsider.com releases its Mid-Major Top-25 poll, which accounts for all teams not in a power 5 conference. In this week’s poll, the Monarchs climbed to #12.

ODU is one of three Sun Belt teams ranked in the most recent poll. Southern Miss, the only other undefeated team in the conference at 7-0, owns the No. 9 spot with 453 points. James Madison is right ahead of ODU in 11th place with 428 points as the Dukes are currently 6-3 overall.

📈: More On The Ranking

🎳 QUEEN CITY, HERE WE COME!

The Monarchs are heading to the Queen City as ODU will go bowling for the second time in three seasons.

This time, it’ll in the Famous Toastery Bowl be against a familiar foe as they battle the Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky, a program that the Monarchs have played seven times previously as a former Conference USA opponent.

The two teams will take the field at Jerry Richardson Stadium on the campus of UNC Charlotte on Monday, Dec. 18 at 2:30 p.m.

🤔 MONARCH TRIVIA

As we mentioned earlier, the offensive side of the floor has been a balanced attack all season for the ODU women’s squad.

How many different Monarchs have scored in double-figures at least once in the first 8 games?

Think you got it?

Scroll down to the bottom of this email and see if you had the right answer!

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📅 WHAT’S ON TAP

Saturday, December 9
🏀 Men’s Basketball vs. James Madison @ 7pm

Sunday, December 17
🏀 Women’s Basketball at VCU @ 1pm
🏊 Swimming at Open Water Championships (Miami, Fla.)

Monday, December 18
Famous Toastery Bowl - Jerry Richardson Stadium (Charlotte, N.C.)
🏀 Football vs. Western Kentucky @ 2:30pm l ESPN

Wednesday, December 20
🏀 Women’s Basketball vs. N.C. State @ 6:30pm

Thursday, December 7
🏀 Men’s Basketball vs. TCU (Diamond Head Classic - Honolulu) @ 5pm

🎉 TRIVIA ANSWER

Answer: Seven.

En’Dya Buford leads the way, scoring in double-figures five different times for the Monarchs, but she’s one of 7️⃣ on the roster that have done so in just the first eight games.

🦁 See you tomorrow night at Chartway!