Men’s Basketball Ends Six-Game Skid And Sends WKU A Farewell Loss
The South Alabama men’s basketball team ended their six-game losing streak at Western Kentucky to bid farewell to the Hilltoppers, 69-62. This is the first road win for the Jaguars this season and could not have come at a better time.
The Jags never trailed in the game and built up a 19-point advantage at one point in the game. Augustine Rubit and Mychal Ammons both turned in double-double’s in the Jags final regular season game against WKU before they join Conference USA this summer.
Ammons led all players with a season-high 20 points and added 11 rebounds for his third double-double of the season. That was the most points by Ammons since December 1, 2012.
Rubit came away with a game-high 13 rebounds with 12 points and five blocks, tying his career best, to earn his first double-double in six games.
“We came in with a plan to win,” head coach Matthew Graves said. “The bottom line is our guys really communicated with one another. They understood this was a big game. This is a tough place to come in and play. Their fans are really good. We needed to come in here and play with energy and effort and communicate with each other, and from the opening tip we did that throughout the entire game.”
“I’m really proud,” Graves said. “It’s no secret Mychal has really struggled lately. Hopefully this will jumpstart him for the rest of the reason and we can continue to build off this. His mindset was just different tonight. He came in and attacked the rim. He didn’t settle too much. I’m really proud of how he bounced back.”
The Hilltoppers used two 10-2 runs in the second half to cut the 19-point Jaguar lead down to just seven with 5:32 left in the game. But Ammons and Rubit both held firm and answered each run to keep the Jaguars in the lead.
The Jags forced misses on three-consecutive possessions and got a layup from Aakim Saintil and three free throws from Antoine Allen adn Rubit to keep the Hilltoppers at bay.
“Well the one thing I told our players is WKU is a great program,” Graves said. “They have a culture and toughness about them, They’re going to make a run. We’ve just got to stay the course, continue to make hard cuts, and make good plays at the rim. Tonight, what we did different than in the past is when teams would make a run, we would settle for contested 3s or late-shot clock 3s and we did that a little tonight, but we also got a couple layups. Mike and Aug attacked the basket. We got to the free throw line. Guys stepped up for us and made some free throws for us down the stretch.”
Rubit passed Ed Rains for third place in school history and 13th place in conference history with 1,810 points and is only two away from 12th place. He also is within one double-double of Terry Catledge for first place in school history in the category with his 51st.
The Jags improve to 8-17 overall, 2-10 in conference play. While they are still in last place in Conference Standings, the Jags are only two games out of the eighth and final spot for in the conference tournament. The Jags have six games left this regular season.
The Jags will travel to Texas State on Thursday in the first of two games left this season against the Bobcats. Tipoff is scheduled for 7pm.
USA Softball Move Up In Polls
After going 5-0 in the 2014 Mardi Gras Invitational and defeating the then #21 ranked UAB Blazer, the South Alabama softball team has moved up in both polls that were released on Tuesday.
USA moved up from #20 to #18 in the USA Today/NFCA Poll and also moved up from #22 to #19 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll.
South Alabama is now the highest ranked team from the Sun Belt Conference after Louisiana-Lafayette fell from #13 to #20 in the USA Today Poll and from #15 to #20 in the ESPN.com poll.
UAB fell out of the of the poll after falling 8-0 to South Alabama in the opening game of the tournament and finished 1-3 for the weekend. The University of Alabama up to #4 from #6 in the USA Today poll and remained #6 in the ESPN.com poll to continue to be the highest ranked school from the state of Alabama in the latest polls.
The Jaguars travel to Athens, Georgia this weekend for the Bulldog Invitational. They will begin play at 9am on Friday against Ohio University then again at 11:30am against Mercer. On Saturday they will play Furman at 8am and Georgia at 1pm. Sunday they will play Georgia once more at 1pm.
Georgia is ranked #19 in the USA Today Poll, one spot behind the Jaguars, and #17 in the ESPN.com, one spot ahead of the Jaguars.
USA Women’s Basketball Host Arkansas State This Morning
The South Alabama Women’s basketball team will host Sun Belt Conference leader Arkansas State this morning for it’s annual “Pack The House” game. Tip off is scheduled for 11:30am at the Mitchell Center with several elementary students from the local area invited for the game.
The Jags (7-13 overall, 5-5 SBC) fell at Troy almost a week ago on the road. They led early but a slump in play and an injury to starting point guard Brittany Webb gave Troy the opportunity to overtake the Jags and win the game.
Webb suffered a torn ACL and will miss the remainder of the season.
Without Webb, the Jaguar offense committed 27 turnovers and shot only 25.8% in the second half. The time between their last game and this game allowed head coach Terry Fowler and his team to make adjust his lineup to fill the void left by Webb’s injury and to try to hold onto their position and play in the Conference Tournament.
Farish Beard Named SBC Pitcher of the Week
Junior Farish Beard struck out 29 during the tournament to earn MVP honors and help lead the Jaguars to a 5-0 record to open the 2014 season. | Photo usajaguars.com
South Alabama’s Farish Beard was named the Sun Belt Conference Pitcher of the Week on Monday. This is the first weekly award announced by the conference office for Softball this season.
Farish, who has a shutout streak dating back to last season for a total of 46 consecutive innings, also extended another streak with this award. This marks the second season in a row that she has earned the Pitcher of the Week honor for the first week of play.
Beard went 3-0 over the weekend at the 2014 Mardi Gras Invitational played at the newly renovated Jaguar Field. She struck out 29 batters and only allowed three hits in 12 2/3 innings to extend her shutout streak.
She was also named to the All-Tournament team and named the tournaments Most Valuable Player as she helped the Jaguars to get off to their best start in program history with a 5-0 record.
Her season debut was against #21 ranked UAB where she struck out 10 in a mercy-rule shortened 8-0 decision.
She followed up that performance with 13 strikeouts, one short of her career high, against Syracuse. She then pitched 2 2/3 innings in relief against Austin Peay where she worked herself out of a one-out, bases loaded jam. She would finish the day with six strikeouts, no walks and only allowing one hit.
Beard and the Jaguar team travels to Athens Georgia for the Bulldog Invitational where they will face Ohio, Mercer, Furman and the Georgia Bulldog (twice).
Men’s And Women’s Basketball Fall At Troy
Men’s Basketball
South Alabama men’s basketball team tried to rally late at Troy Thursday night but their rally fell short 79-74 as the Trojans end their five-game losing streak.
Troy’s Hunter Williams scored 21 of his game-high 26 points in the second half by hitting seven three-pointers.
The Jagaurs late rally was came from Troy’s inability to convert from the free-throw line. They used a 9-3 run to cut into the 12-point deficit but still trailed 78-74 with 22.7 seconds left. They would miss a 3-pointer on its next possession and could not get any closer.
Augustine Rubit scored 25 points, his most since his career-high 35 points on December 14 against Ganzaga. Barrington Stevens III and Ken Williams both added 13 points as Stevens set a new career high with six assists. Williams hit on three 3-pointers as well.
Mychal Ammons came down with eight rebounds while.
“We did a great job on Williams in the first half,” South Alabama head coach Matthew Graves said. “The problem is we have to sustain it for 40 minutes—it’s a 40-minute game—and we’ve had different issues like this during the season where we’ve not been able to put together a complete game. A shooter like Williams, all it takes is one to go in. We didn’t switch a ball-screen and he got a ‘3,’ we didn’t trail a stagger (screen) and he got a ‘3,’ and the two that he got that were ridiculous, those are the ones that go in because he’s feeling comfortable.”
“Unfortunately a good offensive effort was wasted again tonight because we didn’t dig down and guard.”
“When you get hit in the mouth with a punch, you have to get back off the deck and go back at them or you can stand there and keep getting punched,” Graves said. “Unfortunately, too many times we get punched and you run out of time. They were giving us opportunities down the stretch with missed free throws, but by that time you’ve really put yourself in a bind.”
The Jaguars will have a week off before returning to action against Arkansas State at the Mitchell Center on February 13 for a 7:05pm.
Women’s Basketball
The South Alabama Women’s basketball team committed 27 turnovers which led to 29 points by the Trojans as the Lady Jaguars fell 78-53 at Troy.
The Jaguars were led by Breanna Hall with 12 points, three assists and three steals. Meghan Dunn added 11 points for her 14th double-digit game of the season. Ronneka Robertson ended with eight points and 10 rebounds as she fell just short of a double-double.
USA shot only 25.8% in the second half and 35.6% for the whole game from the floor.
Troy’s Joanna Harden, the Sun Belt’s leading scorer, led all players with 30 points as she was 11-of-27 from the field and 4-of-11 from long range.
Brittany Webb was injured during the game and miss the remained of it. “(The loss of Webb) changed our whole rotation,” Jaguar head coach Terry Fowler said. “She’s our primary ball-handler and that changed everything. Meghan Dunn had to play the whole game and guard hard. I thought fatigue and frustration set in for us. Those are two tough things to overcome.”
The Lady Jags fall to 7-13 overall and 5-5 in the Sun Belt.
The Lady Jags will have most of a week off before returning to action against Arkansas State on February 12 at the Mitchell Center. Tipoff is scheduled for 11:30am.
Three Jaguars Named To Preseason All-SBC Softball Team
With the Softball season fast approaching, three South Alabama student-athletes were named to the 2014 Preseason All-Sun Belt Conference team as the Jags were predicted to finish 2nd in the conference this season in selections made by Conference coaches.
Senior lefty Hannah Campbell was selected to the team for the second consecutive season at pitcher. Junior outfielder Blair Johnson was also selected for the second time while junior Kaitlyn Griffith was selected for the first time in her Jaguar career. Griffith is moving from second base to shortstop to fill the position vacated by former Jaguar standout Brittany Fowler.
This is the second straight year the Jags have had at least three selected to the list, which ties for the most this season with Western Kentucky.
Campbell was the first Jaguar to have ever been named an All-American last season. The National Fastpitch Coaches Association selected her after a 22-9 season with the second best ERA in the nation at 1.08. She also set a single-season record last year in saves with six and shutouts with 10 while tossing three no-hitters, including a perfect game against Mississippi Valley State in the first round of the 2013 NCAA Mobile Regionals.
Johnson made the preseason list for the second time this season after helping to lead the Jaguars to back-to-back Sun Belt Conference Tournament championships. She led the team in hits (61) for the second straight season while recording 43 runs scored and 38 RBI. She was named to the All-SBC second team in her first collegiate season in 2012 and was named to the first-team last season.
Griffith finished second on the team in home runs with 10. She led the Jags past Troy in last year’s conference tournament. She had a .577 slugging percentage last year and had a .417 on-base percentage. She drew the second-most hit-by-pitches last season with 16 and recorded a .984 fielding percentage. She displayed her defensive prowess against #9 UCLA last season when filling in for an injursed Brittany Fowler, she had five-assists and a two put-outs from the shortstop position.
Griffith was a second-team selection last season and was named to the all-tournament team as well.
USA finished second to regular-season champion Western Kentucky with Louisiana-Lafayette finishing third. The Jags and ULL faced off in the conference tital game.
The #20 ranked Jaguars open the 2014 season on Thursday, February 6 against #21 ranks UAB at Jaguar Field to to begin the Mardi Gras Invitational.
2014 Sun Belt Conference Softball Preseason Poll (First Place Votes)
UL Lafayette (6)-62 pts
South Alabama (2) -57 pts
WKU (0) -47 pts
Texas State (0) -33 pts
Georgia State (0) -30 pts
Troy (0) -27 pts
UT Arlington (0) -21 pts
UL Monroe (0) -11 pts
Lady Jags Fall To Panthers On The Road
Thursday afternoon the Lady Jaguars were finally able to hit the floor against Georgia State after their 24-hour bus trip to Atlanta on Tuesday into Wednesday.
Unfortunately their second half rally fell short as they lost 62-55 to the Lady Panthers.
USA jumped out to an early 8-2 lead, but the offense went stone cold as they missed 14 of their next 15 shots before Meghan Dunn snapped the 11-conscutive missed shot streak with 9:43 left in the first half. An 18-2 run would put GSU up 20-10 with about six minutes left until halftime.
At the half, the Jags were only 6-of-31 from the field (19.4%) and had only made one three-pointer. GSU shot 45.2% with 22 of its 31 points coming in the paint.
In the second half the Jags finally found their shot as Dunn connected from long range to open the second half. But GSU went on a 13-1 run over the next three-and-a-half minutes to take a 24 point lead on the Jaguars.
A Breanna Hall pass to Ronneka Robertson for an easy shot would spur a 13-2 run by the Jags over the next four-plus minutes. The Jags would cut the lead to 46-33 with less than 12 minutes to play.
Two baskets by the Panthers put them back up by 17 points, but the Jags continued to fight. Sharon Sanders would nail a 3-pointer with 4:01 left to cut the Panther lead to single digits at 54-46.
Later Dunn would bank in a three from the left wing and would follow that up with a baseline jumper with 1:46 left in the game to put the Jags within five points, 58-53.
But Kayla Nolan would hit a bucket and make her and-one to all but seal the game.
In the second half the Jags were 14-of-25 (56%) from the floor and 6-of-13 from 3-point range.
South Alabama fell to 6-12 overall and 4-4 in Conference play on the season with the loss. Meghan Dunn led the Jags with 17 points as she went 7-of-14 from the field and led the team with three 3-pointers and three steals. Jennifer Johnson added 11 points off the bench on 5-of-12 shooting. Breanna Hall came up just short of a double-double with nine points and 10 rebounds.
Georgia State improved to 10-10 overall and 6-2 in conference play with its fifth consecutive win. Alisha Andrews led all scorers with 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting with five assists and three steals. Brittany Logan earned her third-consecutive double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
THe Lady Jaguars will face Arkansas-Little Rock on Saturday. An “Old-timers” game is set for former players at 11am with the Lady Jags facing the Trojans at 2:05pm with the men facing the Trojans at 4:05pm.
USA Softball Ranked 20th In Preseason Poll
The 2013 South Alabama Softball Team earned their second consecutive SBC Tournament title after defeated WKU 2-0 on Saturday, May 11, 2013 | sunbeltsports.org
The University of South Alabama Softball team set a new first in program history on Tuesday. After repeating and Conference champs last season and hosting their very first NCAA Tournament regional, the Jaguars are ranked in the USA Today/NFCA Division I preseason Top 25 poll.
USA earned a spot at #20 in the preseason poll and are one of two Sun Belt schools in the top 25 as Louisiana-Lafayette was voted #13. Western Kentucky received voted but were not ranked in the top 25.
Last season the Jaguars posted a 48-9 record overall and reached the championship game of the NCAA Tournament regional and were ranked #17.
Three other teams from the State of Alabama were ranked or received votes in the poll. Alabama was ranked #6, USA #20, UAB #21 and Auburn received votes but were not in the top 25.
USA will play UAB on February 6 at Jaguar Field then again on February 19 in Birmingham. The Jags will also play Alabama on April 2 in Tuscaloosa.
USA will face other preseason top 25 teams as well. They will face #23 Georgia three times (twice in Georgia tournament February 15, 16 and once in Orlando tournament on February 23), #18 ranked Baylor in the Gulfport, MS. tournament, #17 LSU on April 23 in Baton Rouge and #13 ULL April 12-13 in Lafayette.
They will also face Virginia Tech and Western Kentucky, both schools receiving votes in the poll, but not enough to rank them in the top 25.
“It is always an honor to be recognized as one of the top programs in the NCAA,” said Jaguar head coach Becky Clark. “As coaches and players, we know that all of this will ultimately be played out on the field. I definitely think the preseason list is an indicator of the type of softball that is being played in the Sun Belt; to have two teams in the Top 20 and another team receiving votes is a testament to the hard work put in by the coaches and student-athletes in our conference.”
Jaguar Field is undergoing renovations that should be ready by the time the season starts. The Softball team is also getting a new indoor batting and pitching complex, a new and larger press box, sunken dugouts and will have seating that will wrap around from dugout to dugout.
The Jags are returning seven starters from last season. Their season begins on February 6th against UAB at Jaguar Field. First pitch is set for 6pm.
Go Jags!
Sun Belt Conference Reference Guide Released
On Monday the Sun Belt Conference released a University Reference Guide in order to help avoid confusion concerning its member institutions in the future.
The primary example are the two members in Louisiana, the University of Louisiana At Monroe and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, are the two primary examples.
The Sun Belt announced that it will refer to ULM as UL-Monroe on the first reference and ULM subsequently as an abbreviation. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette will be UL-Lafayette on first reference then subsequent references will be UL-L as an abbreviation.
UL-Lafayette preferred to be called Louisiana and encouraged sports announcers to drop Lafayette and just refer to them as University of Louisiana or simply Louisiana. A state senator said that they would not introduce legislation to tighten state law governing how public universities can refer to themselves, but added that ULL “just needs to do what’s right” and use their full name in all official references.
In legislation passed in 1999 that allowed the school to change it’s name also included a provision that forced them to refer their “municipal locations” for all “academic, public relations, atheltic, as well as other purposes not specified.”
Even the universities website, www.louisiana.edu simply refers to “Louisiana” and under their proper use of the University’s name, it states that ULL in an inaccurate reference. They also say that Lafayette and U of L are both inaccurate and denote other institutions. They say their athletics nickname is Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns. The formal and official name of the university is University of Louisiana At Lafayette and that UL Lafayette may be used as an abbreviation.
This clarification by the conference comes ahead of the addition of four new teams next season with two of them also causing further confusion when it comes to abberviations.
Arkansas State is regularly known as ASU however Appalachian State was regularly known as ASU in their conference and thus cannot be the same in this league. Similarly for Georgia State and Georgia Southern. Sun Belt Conference commissioner Karl Benson said that the schools were very compliant with what they would like to be called and each Sun Belt President or Chancellor approved the references.
But these changes will not require changes to logos or uniforms. The refernece guide will help keep consistency between public announcers at games as well as school’s media relations departments and teh respective media for each school.
“The conference office works for our member universities, and they are the ones that tell us how we want to be referenced,” Commissioner Benson stated. “That is what has led this process is that our member universities should be referenced as they want to be referenced regardless of history or tradition or state guidelines.”
“The universities have accepted the document and what they do internally is not subject to conference regulation,” Benson said. “We’ve sent out a document to our member universities encouraging them to adhere to the reference guide even though it may not be what they normally or historically or traditionally have referenced, but we are encouraging them to, again, take the broader pieces that let’s from a conference standpoint, a collegiate standpoint, a conference member standpoint reference our conference members as they want to be referenced.”
Lady Jags Drop First Conference Game
Arkansas-Little Rock got 27 points from Taylor Gault while holding the Lady Jaguars to 14.3% shooting from outside the arc as the South Alabama women’s basketball team lost their first Sun Belt Conference game.
The Jags (4-9 overall, 2-1 SBC) were dominated defensively. Ronneka Robertson was the only Jaguar in double digits with ten points and eight rebounds. Meghan Dunn finished with nine points. Rachel Cumbo, who was averaging 18.5 points per game over the previous two Sun Belt Conference games and led the league in three-point shooting, was limited to one field goal attempt and two late free throws in the game.
The Jags made a season-low 2-of-14 from outside the three point arc.
Meanwhile South Alabama head basketball coach Terry Fowler said that the Jaguar defense, “just didn’t have the urgency level that we needed to have to give ourselves a chance [against] a team the caliber of Arkansas-Little Rock.” Gautl was 9-of-17 from the field and 3-of-5 from 3-point range while also making all three shots from the charity stripe.
South Alabama will travel to Jonesboro, Arkansas to face Arkansas State on Saturday at 3:05pm.