USA Softball Announces Hiring Of Assistant Coach
Rachele Fico of the National Pro Fastpitch Akron Racers will join the USA Softball team as an Assistant Coach after NPF season concludes. She previously played collegiately at LSU.
South Alabama head softball coach Becky Clark announced the hiring of former LSU standout pitcher and current Akron Racers ace Rachele Fico to fill the assistant coaching position formerly held by Mark Ryal who left for a similar position at Oklahoma State.
Fico will complete the 2014 season with the Akron Racers of the National Pro Fastpitch league before assuming her full-time coaching duties at South Alabama. This will be her first time as full-time coach after spending the last two season with the Racers and also after being selected number 1 overall in the 2013 NPF Draft.
Fico, an Oxford, Connecticut native, is currently the NPF’s leader in win with a 7-5 record this season. She has a 4.14 ERA and has struck out 42 batters in 72 2/3 innings pitched. She will look to help keep the Jaguar pitching staff on top after they finished last season with the NCAA’s best ERA at 1.29. Hannah Campbell led the way with a 0.95 ERA, good enough for third in the nation, while Farish Beard’s 1.23 ERA was good enough for sixth place in the country. Campbell was also selected third overall in the 2014 NPF Draft back in May and joined Fico at Akron. Beard will enter her senior season in 2015.
Fico, while at LSU, was a two-time National Fastpitch Coaches Association First-Team All-American (2012, ’13), three-time NFCA All-South Region First-Teamer (2010,’12, ’13) and a three-time All-Southeastern Conference honoree (2010, ’12, ’13). She was a top-25 finalist for the USA SOftball Player of the Year award on two occasions.
During her freshman season at LSU in 2010 she was named the SEC Co-Freshman of the Year and also made the All-SEC Freshman and Defensive Team lists. The next season she led the team to the 2011 NCAA College Station Regional where they eventually fell to Syracuse. Fico would be named to the All-Regional Team after an 18-strikeout performance against the Orange which tied her the second-most in LSU history.
She also brings Women’s College World Series experience to the Jags staff as she helped lead the Tigers to the 2012 WCWS in Oklahoma City after earning both wins over #9 seed nationally Missouri at the NCAA Columbia Super Regional. She also earned unanimous NCAA College Station Regional MVP after pitching back-to-back shutouts against Texas State and #8 national seed Texas A&M.
In her collegiate career at LSU she finished among the top-5 in appearances (149), starts (104), complete games (82), innings pitched (774), wins (78), saves (8), opposing batting average (.195), shutouts (32), strikeouts (797) and strikeouts per seven innings (7.21).
Welcome to JagNation coach Fico!
Saxton And Smith Named To 2014 Biletnikoff Preseason Watch List
The preseason watch lists are coming out and the Jaguars continue to have representatives being announced. On Tuesday it was the Biletnikoff Award Preseason Watch list announcement that saw two Jaguars being named to the list.
A pair of seniors in Wes Saxton and Shavarez Smith were among the candidates announced on the watch list for the 2014 Biletnikoff Award that is presented by the Tallahassee Quarterback Club Foundation Inc. The award recognizes the outstanding receiver in college football. Any player, regardless of position, who catches a pass is eligible for the award be it a wide receiver, tight end, slot back or running back.
Smith and Saxton set school records last season with 50 catches each as they helped the Jaguar offense average over 250 yards passing per game.
Saxton set a career high with 635 yards receiving while Smith finished with 940 yards receiving with six touchdowns and an average of 18.8 yards per catch. Both of them tied for fifth place in the Sun Belt Conference in receptions per game while Smith finished fourth and Saxton finish eighth in receiving yards per game.
Smith, a 6’1″ 210-pound McDonough, Georiga native, was voted to the Second-Team All-Sun Belt Team after last season as he had 18 plays of 20-yards or more. He was selected the Sun Belt Conference Offensive Player of the week after the Jaguars win over Georgia State with a school record 194 yards, tying another record with 10 catches which included a 37-yarder in the Jags opening possession of the second half. He led the receivers against Tennessee with 83 yards on four catches. He accounted for both of the Jaguars touchdowns against Navy while recording five catches for a team-high 65 yards against the Midshipmen. All those accomplishments came in his first season with the Jaguars.
Saxton, a 6’4″ 235-pound native of Hueytown, Alabama, was a First-Team All-Sun Belt Conference selection after ranking among the top five tight ends in the nation in catches and receiving yards per game. He had a career-high 10 receptions for 89 yards at Texas State. The also set a career high with 95 yards on six catches at Troy. In a two-week span in the Jaguars second and third games of the season he caught seven passes for 92 yards to help the Jaguars defeat Tulane 41-39 in New Orleans then caught four passes for 91 yards the next week against Western Kentucky, including a career-long 37-yard reception, to win their conference opener. He finished out the season with a five-catch 88-yard performance against SBC Co-Champion Louisiana-Lafayette.
The 2014 Biletnikoff Award winner will be announced on December 11 on The Home Depot College Football Awards Show that will air on ESPN. College and NFL Hall of Famer Fred Biletnikoff will announce the winner as part of the awards show.
Two other Sun Belt Receivers were also named to the watch list, Louisiana-Monroe’s Rashon Caesar and Louisiana-Lafayette’s Jamal Robinson for a total of four Sun Belt student-athletes making the 2014 Preseason Watch List.
Congrats Wes and Shavarez! Go Jags!
Could ESPN GameDay Come To Mobile?
South Alabama fans are creating a bit of a storm on social media after a recent post by BleacherReport.
On Sunday Brian Pedersen, a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, posted an article predicting every ESPN College GameDay location for the 2014 season. What has gotten the Jaguar Nation up in arms with their social media postings is their prediction for Week 3 of the college football season.
That week is September 13 when South Alabama is set to host Mississippi State at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. Pedersen points to ESPN’s willingness to travel to Fargo, ND last season to get “off the beaten path”.
He goes on by talking about how there are fewer good stories than South Alabama’s. Though he stated that the football program began in 2010 (actually it began in 2009, but close enough) and how it improved from 2-11 in our first season as an FBS Transitional team to 6-6 in 2013 as our first season as a full FBS member.
“The fans in Mobile love their football and annually support the teams that come into town for the GoDaddy and Senior Bowls,” Pedersen writes in his article. “Now it’s time to give them, and the USA student body, a chance to bask in the glow of the national spotlight for at least one Saturday.”
While it is still a long shot that Kirk, Corso and Chris Fowler could visit the Azalea City for a GameDay stop. Other matchups that weekend that Pedersen considered according to the article was: Columbia, Missouri (Central Florida @ Missouri), Fresno, California (Nebraska @ Fresno State), Iowa City, Iowa (Iowa State @ Iowa), Logan, Utah (Wake Forest @ Utah State), Lubbock, Texas (Arkansas @ Texas Tech) and Norman, Oklahoma (Tennessee @ Oklahoma).
The social media campaign that the fans are conducting involves tweeting at @CollegeGameDay with the hashtags #JagNation and #PickUSA. The #PickUSA hashtag was used last december when the Jaguar fans tried to lobby for the bowl committee’s to extend an invitation to South Alabama for a bowl game. Unfortunately that campaign ended with the Jags staying home for the bowl season after obtaining bowl eligibility with three consecutive wins over three Sun Belt Conference opponents including a 30-8 season finale win over Conference Co-Champion Louisiana-Lafayette at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
Fans, go out and send those messages and share these stories. Every little bit helps. The @CollegeGameDay twitter account posts questions and polls, so it seems to be a monitored account. Filling their inbox and mentions with South Alabama fan messages can only help our cause.
You can read the article here.
Go Jags!
Ucambre Williams Named To Rotary Lombardi Award Watch List
Ucambre William was named to the 2014 Rotary Lombardi Award Preseason Watch List on Monday. | Photo: usajaguars.com
University of South Alabama’s Ucambre Williams was announced as being on the watch list for the 2014 Rotary Lombardi Award by the Rotary Lombardi Award Committee announced on Monday.
This marks the second consecutive season a Jaguar has been named to the watch list for this award. Last season Alex Page was placed on the preseason watch list.
Williams, a 6’3″ 295-pound senior from Phenix City, Alabama, enters the 2014 preseason camp with the tag of starting left tackle. The two-year starter was also named to the preseason second-team All-Sun Belt Conference teams by both Phil Steele and Athlon Sports.
He was selected to the second-team All-Conference team after a team-best 89% grade with 43 pancake blocks. He did not allow a sack on any of the 394 passing plays by the Jaguar offense. He was selected as the coaches’ award winner on the offensive line three times last season (Tulane, Georgia State, Louisiana-Lafayette) and posted a season-high 94% grade against Georgia State and six knockdown blocks against the Green Wave. He equaled his high grade against Troy as the Jags set a school record with 630 yards of total offense. He also graded out with a 90% mark or higher six times last season.
He also was selected for the Coaches’ Award after games against nationally-ranked Mississippi State and UTSA in 2012.
The 45th Annual Rotary Lombardi Award ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday, December 10 at the Bayou Music Center in Houston, Texas. Student-Athletes who are eligible for the award are down-linemen, end-to-end, either on offense or defense, who set up no farther than 10 yards to the left or right of the ball or linebackers who set up no farther than five yards deep from the line of scrimmage.
Congratulations Ucambre! Go Jags!
2014 SBC Media Day Announced With Special New Feature
The annual Sun Belt Conference Media Day for the 2014 season is scheduled for Tuesday, July 22 at the Bienville Club Lounge in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Media Day availability will start at 9AM and go through 5PM with the head coach and two student-athletes from each of the 11 football playing schools in the conference. SBC Commissioner Karl Benson is scheduled to deliver the State of the Sun Belt Conference at 3PM. Following the State of the Conference, Benson will be available to the media along with Coordinator of Officials Steve Shaw, College Football Playoff CFO Reid Sigmon and the Sun Belt Athletic Directors.
Those who cannot attend can view a live show from the floor of Sun Belt Media Day on ESPN3. They will be airing a two-hour broadcast starting at 1PM and will feature a selection of each coach and student athlete interviews from each of the football schools participating.
The Conference will also be unveiling the “Sun Belt Social Suite”. This unique feature will allow fans access and connections to media day activities by featuring fan submitted questions in a one-on-one interview setting. Fans can submit questions to various coaches and student-athletes via Facebook and Twitter by using the hashtag #SunBeltMediaDay. Questions will be answered in real time as the event will be live streamed on the Sun Belt Sports website SunBeltSports.org. The morning session will go from 10AM to 12PM and the afternoon session runs from 1-3PM. Danielle Percival, former Trojan TV Sports reporter, will be hosting the inaugural incarnation of the “Sun Belt Social Suite”.
The schools participating are: South Alabama, Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Idaho, Lousiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, New Mexico State, Texas State and Troy.
Jaguar Tight End Wes Saxton Named To John Mackey Preseason Watch List
Jaguar tight end Wes Saxton catches a pass from Ross Metheny against FIU in 2012. Saxton is the first Jaguar to be named to the John Mackey Award Preseason Watch List.
The National College Football Awards Association released their preseason watch list for the John Mackey Award, which is given annually to the most outstanding collegiate tight end. On that list of 40 student-athletes was University of South Alabama tight end Wes Saxton.
Saxton, a 6’4″ 240-pound Hueytown, Alabama native, earned a first-team All-Sun Belt Conference selection last season as a junior while ranking among the top five tight ends nationally in both repections and receiving yards. He tied for the team lead with 50 catches and gained 635 yards receiving, both of those were career-highs. He is a preseason All-SBC selection at tight end in both the Phil Steele Publications and Athlon Sports heading into the 2014 season.
The Midseason Watch List is set to be announced on October 13 with the 2014 John Mackey Semifinalists will be announced on November 17 and the award finalists will be announced on November 24. The winner will be announced on December 10 and they will be presented the award on December 11 at The Home Depot College Football Awards Red Carpet Show on ESPNU.
One other Sun Belt Conference tight ends were named to the preseason watch list as well. Arkansas State’s Darion Griswold was also named to the list. Other schools with players on the preseason watch list include Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn State, Louisville, Ole Miss, Oregon State, Alabama, Ohio State, Mississippi State, Notre Dame and South Carolina who the Jags will face in November.
South Alabama will begin their 2014 season on September 6 at Kent State with kickoff slated for 1pm on ESPN3.
The Sun Belt Conference Officially Welcomes Four New Members
The Sun Belt Conference said their farewell’s to one school and welcomed four more to the conference on Tuesday.
Western Kentucky officially became a member of Conference USA as Georgia Southern, Appalachian State, New Mexico State and Idaho all joined the Sun Belt. Georgia Southern and Appalachian State both join as full members while New Mexico State and Idaho both join as football-only members.
The with the loss of one and addition of four, it brings the total number of schools in the Sun Belt playing football to 11.
Georgia Southern and Appalachian State join the conference from the Football Championship Subdivision Southern Conference as they are both completing the second year of a two-year transition to Football Bowl Subdivision membership.
Idaho and New Mexico State both were recently members of the Western Athletic Conference and both were previously Sun Belt members.
Western Kentucky joins a number of other former SBC schools in Conference USA.
This brings the Sun Belt Conference membership to South Alabama, Troy, Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Texas State, Georgia State, Georiga Southern, Appalachian State, Idaho and New Mexico State in football. Arkansas-Little Rock and Texas-Arlington are both members of the conference, but do not sponsor football.
All 11 football teams will be eligible for the Sun Belt Conference football championship this season.
It has been repeated several times by Sun Belt Commissioner Karl Benson that it is the goal of the Sun Belt to get to 12 football-playing members so they can break into divisions and most importantly have a football Championship game.
ULL and Arkansas State shared the regular-season title last year with a 5-2 conference record while South Alabama, in it’s first season as a full FBS member and first season eligible for the title, finished second in the conference with a 4-3 record after defeating ULL 30-8 in the season finale. Though the Jags were bowl eligible at 6-6, they were not extended an invitation.
The conference begins play on August 27 when Georgia State hosts Abilene Christian. The Jags open their season on September 6 when they travel to Kent State.
St. Paul’s Standout Corner Commits To South Alabama
St. Paul’s defensive back Jalen Thompson stretches for a pass during the 2013 season. Photo credit: AL.com | Mike Kittrell
The University of South Alabama, head coach Joey Jones and his staff and players as well as head baseball coach Mark Calvi, his staff and players all made a huge ripple in college football recruiting coverage today. In a surprise to the SEC schools recruiting St. Paul’s senior cornerback Jalen Thompson, none of them received his verbal commitment. Instead Thompson gave his verbal to the Jaguars.
Thompson, a 6′ 170-pound cornerback was heavily recruited by several SEC schools including Florida, Georgia, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Auburn and Alabama. His interest was not limited to SEC schools though. He also had offers from California, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Minnesota, NC State, Northern Illinois and Southern Miss, however he ultimately chose to stay close to home in Mobile to play both of the sports he loves at his hometown school.
Depending on which recruiting service you look at, he is either a 3 or 4 star recruit which is arguably the highest rated player to commit to the Jaguars to date. Though he cannot sign with the Jaguars until February 4, 2015 he claims to be “100%” committed to South Alabama.
As a junior in 2013, Thompson recorded seven interceptions and returned two for touchdowns while also forcing a fumble, recovering a fumble and recording 39 tackles. On the baseball diamond he was a Mobile Press-Register All-Region selection at shortstop while hitting .350 with 35 stolen bases as the St. Paul Saints finished the season with a 29-4 record and a berth in the second round of the Class 5A playoffs.
Thompson expects to move from shortstop to center field for baseball and play cornerback and return kicks for the football team.
Could Jalen be the domino that Coach Jones, Coach Turner and the rest of the staff have been looking for? Could he be the one that opens the floodgates of 3*, 4* and opens the door to potentially getting one of the elite 5* recruits to the Jaguars? Only time will tell.
The recruiting process is not over, Thompson will continue to get interest from the other schools who offered scholarships to him, but the hometown school has the upper hand with the Mobile standout.
“It’s close to home,” Thompson told AL.com. “I think South is a school on the rise, and I really wanted to play football and baseball. I’m excited.”
Congrats Jalen and welcome to #JagNation!
Kaitlyn Beans Finishes Season Strong At NCAA Track And Field Finals
Kaitlyn Beans’ freshman season finished up on Friday and what a freshman season it was. She jumped a 12.67m mark on her second jump to finish 17th in the 24 person field and finish one spot and two-hundredths of a meter shy of earning a second-team All-American honors.
Beans, a native of Montgomery, Alabama, qualified for the national meet after a 13.18m mark and a seventh place finish at the regional preliminary to become the first individual in program history to advance to the NCAA finals in any of the jumping events. She is also the first freshman to qualify for the nationals in any event. She finishes the season as the school record-holder of 13.19m when she earned the gold-medal at the Sun Belt Conference Championships in May.
Frechou Sets New School Record; Earns First-Team All-American Honors At NCAA Championships
South Alabama’s Renaldo Frechou finished seventh in the men’s hammer throw at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships while setting a new school record with a throw of 67.64m. He also became the sixth individual in program history to be claim All-American honors with his first-team selection.
Frechou entered the event the 15th overall seed and the school record holder in the event. But he would break his own record four different times in his six attempts before finishing with his 67.62m mark on his final throw. That was more than tree meters better than his 64.36m school and Sun Belt Conference record setting throw in the East Region Preliminaries just two weeks ago.
He is the first All-American since the pair of Tonny Okello and Vincent Rono earned honors in 2007 and only the fourth in the history of the men’s program. He is also the first thrower in school history, man or woman, to earn the honor.
Track and Field head coach Paul Brueske had lots of praise for Frechou, “Renaldo came out here against the best hammer throwers in the country and had four throws over his personal best in the biggest meet of the year. This is a great day for him and for our program. He really stepped up and did a fantastic job, and I’m really proud of the way he handled himself today.”
Kaitlyn Beans will represent the Jaguars on Friday in the triple-jump. The event is set to get underway at 5:25pm CDT where the she is seeded ninth among the individuals participating.