South Alabama Sports Weekend Update
Baseball
The #25 ranked South Alabama Jaguar baseball team completed a three game sweep of conference foe Arkansas-Little Rock over the weekend. Brandon Boyle pitched seven shutout innings in his first career win at Eddie Stanky Field.
Boyle struck out seven and allowed only three hits and one walk while retiring 10 of the final 11 batters he faced. Dylan Stamey struck out four and allowed one run on one hit in 1 1/3 innings for his first career save in the 4-3 victory Friday night.
On Saturday, the Jags had to rally for two runs in the bottom of the 11th inning in order to secure the 6-5 win over UALR.
The Jags Cole Billingsley got a one out single to push a run over the plate in the bottom of the ninth and send the game to extra innings. In the top of the 11th, a two out solo home run by UALR would put them in the lead 5-4 going into the bottom of the 11th.
USA’s Robby Campbell would get on base on a error at shortstop with one out. He would then steal second base. Brent Mitchell would draw a walk to put runners on first and second. Graham Odom would reach on an infield single to first base to load the bases for the Jags. Cole Billingsley would be hit by a pitch to even the score at 5-5. Then Bud Collura would single to shortstop, but UALR’s shortstop’s only play was to second base but his throw would sail wide of the bag allowing Mitchell to score the game winning run.
Jarron Cito would strike out a career high 11 batters in seven innings as the Jags won 11-1 on Sunday at Eddie Stanky Field. Cito allowed on unearned run on just one hit and one walk to post the Jags first complete game of the season and the second of his career. He retired the finall 11 batters he faced.
The Jags improved to 21-4 overall on the season and 5-1 in Sun Belt play with the series sweep. UALR fell to 10-14 overall and 0-6 in the Sun Belt.
The Jags are tied with Western Kentucky atop the Sun Belt standings with a 5-1 record.
The Jags will travel to Hattiesburg to face Southern Miss on Tuesday. First pitch is set for 6pm.
Softball
The #25 ranked Jaguar softball team swept Florida International over the weekend to improve their overall record _______.
The Jags opened the weekend with a doubleheader with wins of 11-5 and 10-0 to clinch the series on Saturday. The Jags outhit FIU 20-6 on Saturday alone and had four home runs.
Five Jaguars recorded multiple hits on Saturday. Brittany Fowler, Kaitlyn Griffith and Emily Messer led with four hits each. Julie Moss had three hits and Britany Campbell had two.
Moss had seven RBI’s on Saturday with Fowler knocking in six runs including three that came on a grand slam that was ruled a single as an appeal revealed that she failed to touch second base.
Farish Beard gave up five earned runs in the bottom of the sixth and now has an ERA of 1.79 after giving up the five runs in game one as she pitched a complete game victory.
Hannah Campbell’s league-leading ERA went down to 0.93 as the junior threw her 12th complete game of the season and her fifth shutout as she improved her record to 12-5.
The Jags then capped off the sweep with an 8-5 win on Sunday to earn their first sweep of the season. After two and a half innings, the Jags led 6-0 before adding two insurance runs in the top of the fifth. The Jags then weathered a late two run push to preserve the win.
Hannah Campbell tossed her 13th complete game of the season and lowered her ERA to 0.87 to continue to lead the league. She is 13-5 on the season.
The Lady Jags will host LSU on Wednesday at Jaguar Field. First pitch is set for 7pm.
Coach Jones Pleased With Thursday Practice Prior To Saturday Scrimmage
Head coach Joey Jones working with the field goal unit during South Alabama’s Scrimmage on Saturday, March 3, 2012.
The Jags hit the practice field Thursday morning for their seventh practice out of their 15 allowed practices during the spring. The workout lasted over two hours and coach Jones was very pleased with what he saw, more so than Tuesday’s practice.
“It was real good today, the effort was great,” Coach Jones explained. “The guys were lively this morning. I thought Tuesday was a good practice, but today’s was even better. There is no doubt we are putting more in and they are retaining it. These guys are coming to practice every day, that’s what I’m pleased with.”
South Alabama backs and receivers went through different formations and motions prior to coming together to run red zone 7-on-7 skeleton passing drills against the defense in a two-minute drill situation. They also went through some three-quarter speed rushing plays as they continued to focus on fundamentals and help the offense to run the ball better.
The special teams group worked on kickoff and kick returns. But Coach Jones has been stressing that, this spring, they had to slow down and work on fundamentals. However, on defense, he noticed that they worked at a faster pace after learning their new system and new terminology.
Not everything was good though. Jones expressed how many times the offense put the ball on the ground. Up until Thursday, this had not been a problem.
Spring practice is not only for fundamentals, it’s also a chance for players to seperate themselves and begin to make their case for positions on the depth chart. Maleki Harris and Jay Jones have both opened some eyes this spring. Additionally redshirt freshmen offensive linemen Daniel Aust, Steven Foster, Clay Machen and Joseph Scelfo are all working hard and pushing for playing time.
They closed out the practice session with nearly 35 minutes of team drills. One segment consisted of red-zone plays and a pair of two-minute drills to end the session.
Brandon Bridge had three long gains that eventually set up a six-yard touchdown to Jake Howton for the second team. In the latter portion of the practice, the first team defense did not allow any points.
“The two-minute drill was good,” Coach Jones explained. “The defense did a good job of stopping the offense our first time doing it. You have to familiarize yourself with situations, that’s what we’re trying to do this spring. If it’s third-and-eight and we have 20 seconds left on the plus-40 yard line and need three points, what are we going to do? We’re trying to teach them throughout these practices, it’s not as much about whether we are successful or not, so that they can learn from these situations on film.”
The Jags will return to the practice field on Saturday morning for their second scrimmage of the spring that is scheduled for 9:45am and will last about two hours.
“It will be a little different in that we will have a lot more special teams situations infused into the practice, but as far as the number of plays it will be very similar,” said Jones. “We’ll move the football around the field, we’ll be in the red zone and goal line more than we were the first time, which are the two changes we’ll make.”
USA Softball Shutout UAB 3-0 Wednesday Night At Jaguar Field
The South Alabama Jaguar softball team, ranked #25 in the nation for the first time in program history, shut out the UAB Blazers 3-0 at Jaguar Field on Wednesday night. The Jags improved their record to 24-5 while the Blazers fell to 15-7. The Jags hold a 7-2 overall record against UAB with the win and 9-1 at home on the season.
UAB started strong with three hits and drawing two walks in the first two innings but the Jaguar defense would not allow a run. Emily Messer would throw out a runner at the plate from the outfield in order to keep the Blazers off the board.
Hannah Campbell struck out seven and allowed five hits to earn her fourth shutout of the season and improve to 11-5 on the season.
Leigh Streetman’s record fell to 7-4 on the season for the Blazers as she allowed three hits and three earned runs. Hannah Campbell’s twin sister, Lannah, pitched three innings of relief for UAB and only allowed one hit.
Britany Campbell opened the scoring for the Jags with a solo home run to right center. Messer would get a double on a two strike pitch and advance to third base on a throw. But Blair Johnson would bring her home with a two-run homer, her third of the season, over the right field wall for the Jaguars final two runs of the game.
The Jags were outhit in the game 5-4, but half of the Jaguar hits landed over the outfield wall.
“Overall, aside from the first inning, I thought it was a well-played game for us,” USA head coach Becky Clark said after the game. “That was a big play by Messer in right field to keep them off the board. I though Hannah had a great day. She pitched out of a couple of jams with runners in scoring position. Our defense was solid, and then we got the timely hit.”
“Britany and Blair really squared those balls up to get them out,” Clark continued. “These kids work a tremendous amount in the (batting) cage. They are always staying in the mindset of saying ‘yes’ to the ball. The work they do in there pays off out here.”
The Jaguar softball team will travel to Miami for a three game Conference series against FIU. FIU sits ahead of the Jags in conference standings with four conference wins to the Jaguars two.
Jags Season Ends With 84-73 Loss To Tulane In CollegeInsider.com Tournament
The South Alabama Jaguars men’s basketball team had their season end Wednesday night as they fell 84-73 in New Orleans to the Tulane Green Wave.
Over the final five minutes of the game Tulane used a 9-0 run to clinch the win over the Jags in the first round of the CollegeInsider.com Tournament. The Jags end the season with a 17-13 overall record while the Green Wave improve to 20-14 and advance in the tournament.
The difference in the game was from the free throw line as Tulane went 27-of-37 from the charity stripe.
Junior Augustine Rubit was the games top scorer with 31 points with 25 of them coming after halftime including 15 consecutive late in the game. He was 12-of-18 shooting from the floor and 7-of-8 from the free throw line.
Sophomore Mychal Ammons scored 11 points while Javier Carter just missed a double-double with nine points and a team-high 10 rebounds. Freddie Goldstein would add four points in his final game of his career at USA and his first returning from a broken collarbone.
Josh Davis of Tulane earned his 19th double-double of the season with 26 points and 12 rebounds. Kendall Timmons and Ricky Tarrant both added 13 points each.
The Jags trailed all of the final 38:55 of the game but would not allow themselves to be put away. Barrington Stevens III would pull the Jags within two points with 12:37 left but that would be as close as they could get, the closest they would get the rest of the way out would be four points.
“I thought our guys fought extremely hard in some tough situations,” interim head coach Jeff Price said after the game. “It was hard to get a flow of the game. Because of the free throws, you couldn’t get a rhythm or a flow going. We got in to foul trouble, particularly with Aug in the first half. I thought our guys were resilient like they always have been, it just caught up with us in the end.”
“It was another unbelievable effort by him [Augustine Rubit],” Price said. “Again, those numbers came with him being double and triple teamed. He did a nice job kicking it out and just played extremely well.”
“I’m proud of our guys,” said Price. “They’ve been tremendous all year. They like each other, they play hard and they play together. As a coach, that’s all you can ask for.”
Now the focus will turn towards the coaching search, which Jeff Price is a candidate for, to see who will be the next men’s head basketball coach at South Alabama.
Players Had Week Off But Football Staff Were Hard At Work
Head Coach Joey Jones looking on as the Jaguars warm up for their game at North Carolina State.
While the Jaguar players enjoyed spring break, head coach Joey Jones and his staff poured over video of prospects for the 2014 recruiting class.
The Jags also made several scholarship offers. Making early scholarship offers gets the Jags on the recruits mind early and, now that the Jaguars are a full FBS team, it means more. As a full member of the Sun Belt Conference and FBS, they are eligible for the SBC Championship and a bowl invitation.
Jones is always looking for playmakers. But they are also looking for a couple offensive linemen for their 2014 class. Defensively they continue to looking for players in the secondary at safety, cornerback and nickel while also finding some good players to contribute in special teams.
But in addition to recruiting, coach Jones and his staff were reviewing video from the first five practices and evaluating players. But this process will continue throughout the Jags remaining practices prior to their annual Red-Blue Spring Game.
“We had a good week evaluating our players,” Jones commented to AL.com. “Again, the whole thing about spring is to go through the whole spring and then evaluate them at that point. But certainly there are some guys who have caught our eye and are doing really well and moving away toward more playing time. That’s happened in the first five days and it will continue to happen for the remainder of spring.”
The week off for spring break has allowed some Jaguars to heal and get cleared to return to the practice field. Linebacker Bryson James was able to recover from dehydration and a head laceration and get clearance from the medical staff for Tuesday’s practice. Ridge James, another linebacker, was cleared to return after passing tests for a concussion he sufferred in the Jags third practice. Defensive back Charles Harris, who also suffered a concussion, was cleared medically to return to the field.
Eddie Cabrera, who suffered a fractured fibia during spring practice, will miss the remainder of the spring practices but should be healed in time for fall camp. Anthony Harris, Ucambre Williams, Shaun Artz and Randon Carnathan have all missed each of the practices this spring and most of them will not participate during the remainder of spring practice as they continue to recover from their injuries.
Jags Baseball Defeat SLU 13-7 Behind 21 Hits
The South Alabama baseball team collected 21 hits in their 13-7 win over Southeastern Louisiana on Tuesday evening in Hammond, Louisiana.
Six different Jaguars recorded multiple hits in the game with Jordan Patterson leading the way by going 4-for-4 with a double, a home run, four RBI and three runs scored. Robby Campbell went 4-for-6 with a new career high three RBI. Nolan Earley went 3-for-6 with four RBI and a run scored.
Matt Bell improved to 4-0 on the season while scattering six hits with two strikeouts and three walks. He allowed four unearned runs.
“We didn’t play solid defense behind Matt (Bell) tonight, but he was solid for us,” head coach Mark Calvi said after the game. “The thing I was most impressed with was the way our guys on the mound handled adversity. They just kept going and didn’t shy away from it. Sometimes those things happen and it did tonight, and we were fortunate to get a win.”
“Who would ever think you could make five errors and win a ballgame,” Calvi continued. “But it did tonight and we’re extremely fortunate that we won. We swung the bats well. Southeastern Louisiana is a good club and was undefeated at home coming into this game. We feel fortunate to win, but we’ll take it and move on.”
The 18-4 Jaguars will return to the field this weekend when they host Arkansas-Little Rock for a three-game weekend Sun Belt Conference series at Eddie Stanky Field.
USA Softball Ranked In Top-25 For First Time In Program History
On Tuesday, a first in South Alabama history occurred. For the first time in school history both the Baseball team and the Softball team are ranked in the top-25.
Announced on Tuesday, the Jaguar softball team is ranked 25th in the ESPN.com / USA Softball Collegiate Top-25 for the first time in program history. The Jags are 23-5 on the season and received 20 votes in the poll this week after taking two of three from then #22 ranked Louisiana-Lafayette at Jaguar Field over the weekend. ULL fell out of the polls to make South Alabama the only nationally-ranked Sun Belt Conference team.
The Jags received 46 votes in the USA Today / National Fastpitch Coaches’ Association Division I poll, which was six votes short of #25 Nebraska who are 18-5 this season.
Below is the full Top-25 ESPN.com / USA Softball Collegiate ranking
1. Oklahoma (20) 27-1 500 1
2. Arizona State 29-2 474 2
3. Florida 27-3 444 3
4. Texas A&M 26-2 432 5
5. California 23-3 425 4
6. Alabama 26-3 398 6
7. Missouri 15-2 374 8
8. Tennessee 23-6 367 7
9. Texas 27-4 340 10
10. Oregon 23-4 333 9
11. Louisville 23-3 294 11
12. LSU 23-5 279 13
13. UCLA 23-4 251 12
14. Michigan 21-7 240 14
15. Baylor 25-5 213 15
16. Stanford 22-5 186 18
17. Washington 22-7 164 16
18. Tulsa 23-5 157 20
19. Virginia Tech 18-4 139 T21
20. Nebraska 18-5 105 T21
21. Kentucky 19-7 104 17
22. Arizona 20-8 102 19
23. Hawaii 22-7 56 23
24. Georgia 21-7 39 RV
25. South Alabama 23-5 20 RV
Jags Return To Practice Field After Spring Break
After over a week off, the Jaguars returned to the practice fields to continue spring football practice.
They hit the fields at 6am to practice in some breezy conditions which affected certain aspects of practice. They worked on position and team drills covering virtually all aspects of play. A big premium this spring has been put on fundamentals and ball control. A couple of drills were practices that focused on holding onto the ball, which plagued the team last season.
The offense and defense both have been working to lay down the basics of their plans for the fall football season. Coaches will disect the video to evaluate players and make decisions on who will receive increasing numbers of reps in the remaining spring practices and when fall camp begins in August.
Coach Jones commented that the team came back with intensity after over a week off. “It was good,” head coach Joey Jones said after practice. “I thought we had a great practice. The kids came back ready to go. They really retained a lot of the things they have learned the first five practices, which was good. We added some stuff offensively and defensively, so we made progress today.”
In the first five practices, coach Jones said that he and his staff kept them really simple to focus on fundamentals and to easily retain what they worked on. Now they are building upon that foundation. “We actually added things in today, which was good because obviously there are areas we need to work on,” Jones explained. “The coaches have done a great job of presenting it in a progressive way where they could learn it, they are not just throwing things at the kids. The way the coaches are teaching has helped the players on the field.”
During the practice they worked on individual skill drills before the first team offense began working on screen plays, which was followed by inside run drills. During that time, wide receivers and defensive backs worked in one-on-one drills.
A period of 7-on-7 skeleton passing drills lasted around 15 minutes before a segment of full team work. During the full team workout, they practiced on first, second and third down plays.
Split up in different segments of practice they worked on different special teams as they focused on punts, punt returns and field goals. Scott Garber and Logan Gunn both had standout punts during the punting session. Coach Jones, Coach Vincent and a number of Graduate Assistants worked with the players during the special teams workouts since no one has been designated as the special teams coach.
The Jags only have a total of nine practice sessions left including their annual Red-Blue spring game at Ladd-Peebles Stadium on Saturday, April 6. They will return to the practice field on Thursday morning at 6am, Saturday morning at 9:45am which Jones indicated would be a scrimmage and Sunday at 3pm at the practice fields on campus.
They have two practice sessions next week prior to another scrimmage on Saturday, March 30.
Goldstein Cleared To Play Just In Time For CollegeInsider.com Basketball Tournament
Freddie Goldstein medically cleared to play after missing seven weeks with a broken collarbone. Photo by John Adams | usajaguars.com
South Alabama’s Freddie Goldstein was cleared to play for the Jaguars in the CollegeInsider.com Basketball Tournament.
Goldstein suffered a broken collarbone against Western Kentucky on January 24 at the Mitchell Center. At first the injury looked to have ended his senior season but after seven weeks of watching from the sidelines, he was cleared by team doctors on Monday. The Jags will travel to play Tulane in New Orleans on Wednesday in the first round of the CollegeInsider.com tournament.
Goldstein started 17 of 18 games prior to his injury while averaging 8.1 points and 2.3 rebounds per game with 45 assists. Interim head coach Jeff Price is happy to have Goldstein back, as are fans. it is unknown how much time he may see in the game against Tulane after finally hitting the court with the team on Monday. But if the Jaguars advance, it is expected with more practice time he could see more playing time.
But that depends on the Jaguars advancing in the tournament.
The Jags and the Green Wave are set to tip-off at 7pm.
USA Softball’s Fowler Name SBC Player of the Week
Brittany Fowler named SBC Softball Player of the Week on March 18, 2013 after going 6-of-8 and three home runs on Saturday against #22 ULL. | Photo by usajaguars.com
Brittany Fowler of the South Alabama Softball team was named Sun Belt Conference softball Player of the Week. This comes after her performance this past week against #22 ranked Louisiana-Lafayette.
Fowler was 6-of-8 against the Ragin’ Cajuns on Saturday where the Jags won both games of the doubleheader. She had seven RBI over the weekend and scored four runs herself. Additionally she hit a grand slam in the first game Saturday then followed that up with two home runs in the second game.
This is the first honor for Fowler since February 28, 2011 during her Sophomore season and she is the third Jaguar honored so far this season.
Fowler is in the top five in the conference in runs scored with 25, home runs with six, slugging percentage at .708 and on-base percentage with .511. She also leads the team in batting average with a .375 average while holding six All-Time school records.
She currently holds the #1 spot for Runs Scored (134), Hits (184), Triples (10), Hit by Pitch (37), RBI (123) and Sacrifice Flies (7). She currently ranks 3rd in Home Runs with 23.