USA Softball Heading To Tuscaloosa For NCAA Regionals
The South Alabama Lady Jaguar Softball team won their first Sun Belt Conference Championship on Saturday when they defeated top seeded, and ranked #6 nationally, Louisiana-Lafayette Rajin’ Cajuns 3-1 in Boca Raton Florida. This was only ULL’s fourth loss of the season.
On Sunday evening it was announced on the national selection show aired on ESPNU that South Alabama will participate in the regionals being held in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on May 18-20. The opening game of the double elimination tournament will being at 3:30pm on Friday, May 18 and will feature the Lady Jags (39-15) vs Georgia Tech (36-21) at Rhodes Stadium on the campus of the University of Alabama, who is the #2 seed. Alabama will open tournament play against Tennessee-Martin (39-20) at 6pm on Friday night. South Alabama will be the #3 seed in the regional. Alabama is the #1 seed, Georgia Tech is the #2 seed and Tennessee-Martin is the #4 seed.
The winner of the Tuscaloosa regional will play the winner of the Louisville Regional which includes the teams from Louisville, Kentucky, Valparariso and Michigan, in the NCAA Super Regional.
“The biggest thing is how proud I am of our program,” said USA head softball coach Becky Clark. “There’s a lot of work that has gone into to this by a lot of different people. I think one of the biggest things is what a great job they do of representing the university. Our athletic department is about citizenship, graduation and championships and I think of a better group that represents that than our softball team.”
Go Jags!!
USA Rugby Takes Bronze at AL Sports Festival
[Release from Coach Darwin]
The tournament was between mixed competition of 5 men’s teams and 5 collegiate teams. It was hosted at Spanish Park High School in Hoover AL. The Jaguars were in pool A with B’ham 1 (Gold), Montgomery, & UNA. Getting to a medal meant placing 1st or 2nd in our pool. We easily did that, and in the end only lost to the Gold and Silver medal winners.
USA 24 v Montgomery 0 – “Great opening match. Our boys came out strong, jumped on the much bigger men’s team and never let up. A real confidence builder.”
USA 7 v B’ham One 14 – “Birmingham 1 had the home field advantage, they are a large physical men’s team and I thought we looked sharp at times against them. They were definitely the better tea at the end of the day.”
USA 10 v UNA 0 – “The University of North Alabama let us get back into our rhythm, in the heat of the day. Beating them meant extending into a medal round and it helped refuel the Jaguars.”
Semi Final #1
USA 5 v Ship 24 – “Battleship of Mobile was a somewhat familiar foe and we knew it was going to be a tough match-up. We prepared for them like any other club but the boys had to play their entire bench to finish the match.”
Bronze Medal Game
USA 12 v Bama 0 – “Bronze medal match, and the Jaguars weren’t coming away empty handed. The young jags had played out of their skin all day and got some sweet payback on a team the bested them late last Spring.”
Sports Round-Up For 2009-05-14
Football
Football keeps getting closer. With 113 days until kickoff of the first season in South Alabama history another small, yet historic mark creeps up upon us. Season ticket holders will begin choosing their seats at Ladd-Peebles Stadium on Tuesday, May 19th. This process begins for 4,500 individuals who have already made the commitment for the 2009 season. The USA Ticket Sales Office is recommending that all season ticket holders select their seats over the phone. It can be done in person, however individuals who come to campus may experience a delay in choosing their location.
Baseball
Men’s Baseball has dropped their last four games, all at home. They dropped three over the weekend to FIU with scores of 1-9, 15-21 and 7-8. Then on Tuesday night they lost to Southern Miss at Stanky field, 5-7.
Starting tonight, the Jaguars, 11-15 in the SBC, have a three game home series against in state rival Troy to round out the regular season. These three games are crucial for the Jags because if they get swept then the Jags may not make it into the Sun Belt Conference Championship tournament in Troy.
So come out and help the Jags win some crucial games.
Softball
Unfortunately the Jaguars softball team were knocked out of the SBC tournament last week in Denton, Texas. The Jags beat #3 WKU in the first round but fell to #7 FAU in the second round to fall into the losers bracket where they lost the rematch with #3 WKU to be eliminated from the tournament. #1 seeded ULL lost their first round matchup with #8 ULM but ground out five consecutive wins to win the SBC Championship title.
USA Junior Beth Pilgrim became the first South Alabama softball player to be named to the Sun Belt Conference All-Tournament team for her performance at the SBC Championship last week. This is her third conference honor this year. She was previously named Pitcher of the Week on April 6th and second-team All-Conference on May 5th.
Basketball
Coach Arrow added two names to the list this week. USA announced Rob Phillips signed a national letter of intent to play at USA. He is a 6’2″ shooting guard who is currently attending Charis Prep School in Goldsboro, N.C. He averaged 23.1 points per game, 56.9% from 3-point range and 92% from the free throw line for Charis.
Also P.J. Reyes signed a National Letter-of-Intent to play for USA. Reyes is a 6’4″ wing from Lamar Community College in Lamar, CO. He will have two seasons of eligibility remaining. He started 33 games and averaged 20.3 points and 4.3 rebounds per game while shooting 47%.
Tennis
As reported yesterday, the Men’s Tennis program was hit with the news that they were found guilty of major infractions on Tuesday by the NCAA.
The violations as stated by the NCAA include unethical conduct by the former head coach Scott Novak, the University’s failure to monitor, impermissible financial aid and loans, improper student-athlete certification and an impermissible decrease in athletic scholarships.
The penalties include placing the program on probation for three years, including a postseason ban in 2010, the loss of scholarships and the forfeiture of past wins and championships. The number of scholarships have been reduced from 4.5 to 2.72 per year through 2011. The full write-up about this can be found here.
South Alabama Sports Roundup – May 4th 2009
Coach Ronnie Arrow is looking for a new assistant coach as Andrew Helton has been named the new head coach at Eastern New Mexico University. He will be the 11th head coach in school history and inherits a team that went 4-23 last season.
Helton has been a member of Coach Arrow’s staff for the past eight seasons, the last two at USA helping to lead the Jaguars to two consecutive 20-win seasons. ENMU is a Division II school that plays in the Lone Star Conference. Us Jaguars wish him the best in his new position.
Coach Becky Clark and the Jaguar Softball team will go to Denton, Texas to make its second appearance in the Sun Belt Conference Championship. North Texas will host the SBC Championship from May 6th through May 9th. The Jaguars, 26-26-1 and 10-12 in the SBC clinched the #6 seed and will face #3 Western Kentucky (32-17 overall and 14-9 in the SBC) on Wednesday at 3pm.
The SBC Softball Championship matchups are: #1 Louisisana-Lafayette vs #8 Louisiana-Monroe, #2 Troy vs #7 Florida Atlantic, and #4 Florida International vs #5 North Texas.
The Jaguar Baseball team visited Tuscaloosa on Wednesday but could not come away with a second victory in a week agaist the Crimson Tide. They lost 14-3. Over the weekend the Jaguars travelted to Monroe, LA for a three game series against Louisiana-Monroe. The Jaguars got to play two of the three games with Sunday’s matchup being cancelled due to the weather. But the Jags came out on top in both games 12-9 and 11-9.
After five days off this week the Jaguars will have seven home games to conclude the season (unless the ULM game is rescheduled). Starting on Friday May 9th, Florida International will visit Stanky field for three games, then Southern Miss visits on Tuesday may 12th and then Troy comes to town for a three game series beginning on Thursday May 14th.
Currently the Jaguars sit at 23-23 overall for the season and 11-12 in the Sun Belt. The Jags are fifth in the Sun Belt standings 2 1/2 games behind Florida International and 7 1/2 game from first.
The Sun Belt Championship starts May 20th and will be in Troy, Alabama.
Coach Arrow has signed a pair of players for the Basketball team. Tim Williams from Pontiac, Michigan has signed a National Letter-of-Intent. He will be transferring from Motlow State CC in Lynchburg, Tennessee and will have two seasons of eligibility. He averaged 21.4 points per game, 8.1 rebounds and had a team high 55 3-pointers and 52 steals.
Raymond Sims is a 5′ 9″ guard from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He will be transfering from Paris Junior College in Paris, Texas and will have two seasons of eligibilty. He averaged 5.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game leading his team to a 25-6 record. Paris JC competes in one of the toughest Junior College leagues in the nation and has averaged 27.3 wins in the last two seasons and won a school record 30 games in the 07-08 season.
Previous signees include Augustine Rubit, Javier Carter and Andre Gowins. All three signed in November.