12th Ranked Jaguar Softball Team Downs Troy 9-1 On The Road
Freshman Amanda Minahan, a Lisle, Ill, broke open the game against Troy with a three-run homer in the fifth inning and scored twice herself. | Photo: usajaguars.com
The #12 ranked South Alabama softball team extended their latest winning streak to 10 games after defeating their in-state conference rival Troy 9-1 on Wednesday evening.
The Jags (26-3, 4-0 SBC) were held hitless through the first three innings before their bats came to life and starting pushing the runs across the plate. In the next four innings the Jags would score nine runs on nine hits.
Farish Beard moved to 15-1 on the season as she struck out nine Trojans and allowed four hits and one earned run.
Freshman Chloe Rathburn and Amanda Minahan both led the Jaguars in the game. Rathburn went 3-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored. Minahan had three RBI on a three-run homer in the fifth inning and scored a pair of runs herself.
Stephanie Pilkington was 1-for-3 with two runs scored whiel Blair Johnson, Alyssa Linn, Gwen Jones and Taylor Rodgers all also scored runs. Alex Breeden and Amanda Herron both had an RBI each.
Troy’s lone score came after Kacie McAllister hit the first triple against the Jaguars all season. She would score on a sacrifice hit by Erica Davis.
South Alabama will host Louisiana-Monroe this weekend for a three game series. They will get started on Saturday with a double-header beginning at 1pm and the second game at 3pm. Then the series finale at 1pm on Sunday.
USA Baseball Wins 5-4 On Walk-Off Single Over Nicholls State
The Jaguar baseball team defeated Nicholls State 5-4 Tuesday night at Eddie Stanky Field on Davis Knapp’s bases-loaded, walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Nicholls State jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the top of the second inning when Justin Holt hit a two-out, three-run double down the left field line after the bases were loaded on consecutive walks and a one-out single.
The Jags responded with three runs in the bottom of the second inning when Cole Jarman and Cameron Cummings got on base with back-to-back one-out walks. Andrew Tindell then reached on a fielding error by the second baseman which allowed Jarman to score from second base to cut the lead to 3-1. Drew LaBounty then hit an RBI single to right-center shave another run off the lead. Knapp then tied the game two batters later with a two-out RBI single to right center which scored Tindell from second base.
In the top of the third, the Colonels regained the lead by one run after Keith Cormier would get on base with a one-out walk. He could then be diven home by an RBI single to right field. Though they threatened by loading the bases on starter Matt Bell, but Hunter Soleymani entered in relief and pitched out of the jam without allowing another run.
In the bottom of the fourth, LaBounty would hit a two-out single to center field, then advance to third on a single to right field by Ballew and eventually tie the game on a throwing error by the catcher on a stolen base by Ballew to knot the game at 4-all.
In the bottom of the ninth, Cummings and Tindell both reached base on back-to-back walks to lead off the inning. Both advanced a base on a sacrifice bunt by LaBounty then Knapp would take a 1-0 and hit it through the left side of the infield to drive in Cummings for the winning run.
The Colonels fall to 13-13 on the season as the Jaguars improve to 13-10 on the season.
Jaguar right-hander Ben Taylor earned the win on two scoreless innings of relief while striking out three and walking one. Knapp went 2-for-5 in the game with two RBI to lead the Jags.
USA will host UT-Arlington for a three-game SBC series this weekend starting at 6:30pm on Friday.
USA Softball Moves Up One Spot In Polls, Debuts At #7 In RPI Rankings
The South Alabama softball team continues their methodical march up the polls this week as they moved up another position.
The 25-3 Jaguars moved up to #12, their highest ranking ever in the program’s history, in the USA Today/NFCA Top 25 but remained at #13 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Top 25 poll. They are the second highest ranked team from the state of Alabama, behind the University of Alabama who are ranked 7th in the USA Today poll and 5th in the ESPN.com poll.
Auburn is the only other school in the state ranked in the top 25 with a 22nd place in the USA Today and a 21st position in the ESPN.com poll. Also, the only other member from the Sun Belt Conference in the top 25 is Louisiana-Lafayette who is 20th in the USA Today poll and 22nd in the ESPN.com poll.
But they have an even higher ranking in the NCAA Softball RPI rankings. The Jags are currently ranked 7th in the nation among NCAA Division I teams. They hold wins over a number of teams currently or previously ranked in the top 25 this season, including a 3-2 win over then ranked 13th (USA Today/NFCA poll) that currently holds the #1 ranking in the RPI.
The Jags are the highest ranked Sun Belt team with ULL coming in at 20th, WKU 67th, Troy 84th, Texas State 96th, Georgia State 97th, UT-Arlinging 108th, ULM 157th.
The University of Alabama holds the #2 spot in the RPI to be the highest ranked team in the state, USA is next and followed by Auburn 21st, UAB 32nd, Troy 84th, Jacksonville State 106th, Samford 113th, Alabama State 283rd and Alabama A&M 284th.
USA will travel to face Alabama in Tuscaloosa on April 2nd at 6pm. But before then they have a game this evening at Troy followed by a weekend series at home against ULM.
Jags Look Good In First Scrimmage Of Spring Practice
Saturday morning the Jaguar football team held their first scrimmage of spring practice. Highlighting the scrimmage was Brandon Bridge with three touchdown passes and Xavier Johnson rushing for three more as well.
Bridge was 7-of-15 for 135 yards and also added 37 yards on the ground, including a four-yard touchdown run on his final carry of the scrimmage to total 172 yards of total offense.
Bridge found Shavarez Smith for a 40-yard touchdown about midway through the scrimmage. His final two completions of the scrimmage both went for touchdowns with a 23 yard pass to Braedon Bowman and a 22 yard pass to Smith again.
Johnson rushed 11 times for 44 yards to share the team lead for the Jaguars. He scored from distances of 2, 15 and 1 yard out. Berren Tyson also rushed for 44 yards on nine carries including a three yard touchdown on the final snap of the scrimmage. Terrance Timmons rushed for 38 yards on seven carries, Martavious Stewart added 37, Trey Fetner added 33 and Grant Powell added 28 on the day. Kendall Houston scored the first touchdown of the scrimmage on a two-yard run.
Fetner went 6-of-9 passing for 123 yards while Powell completed 5-of-8 passes for 52 yards.
Smith led the receivers with 62 yards receiving. Johnson added a catch for 40 yards and Jereme Jones caught a pass for 22 yards. Caleb Hayman also had a catch for 41 yards as well.
The Jaguar offense averaged nearly six yards per play and gained a total of 624 yards on the day.
The Jaguar defense held strong early and did not allow any points in the first seven drives until Aleem Sunanon hit a 35-yard field goal to end the shutout. The first-team defense was led by the trio of Terrell Brigham, Antonio Carter and Desmond LaVelle who each had five tackles. Carter intercepted a deflected pass which ended the offense’s opening possession. Theo Rich had two of the six sacks on the day.
On the second team defense, Raheem Robinson led with seven tackles while Nigel Green and Josh Carroll both had interceptions.
Zac Henry hit a 40-yard field goal during the scrimmage.
“Brandon made some big plays and he ran the ball well, he didn’t make many mistakes,” head coach Joey Jones said after the scrimmage. “I think he can make some better choices where he is throwing the ball at times, but overall I thought he had a good day.”
“Our defensive front is playing extremely well, especially our ones,” Jones continued. “When our twos get in you can definitely see a difference, so we have to develop some depth there. But our ones on defense look pretty good, they are flying to the football and having a good time.”
“I thought it was good, our guys have improved,” Jones stated. “We’ve gotten better over the last two weeks and eight practices, but if we don’t improve over the next two weeks we’re going to waste time. We’ve got to get better while we have pads on because in football the only time you can really improve is by being out there in full gear tackling.”
“If we can continue to get better it will be a good spring, but we have to finish strong.”
After a day off the Jaguars returned to the practice field on Monday with a practice lasting over two hours to begin the third week of spring drills.
The Jags used 45-minutes to work on fundamentals with the rest of practice devoted to mostly offense versus defense work. A 15-minute session of 7-on-7 skeleton passing drills occured before the final 40 minutes of practice beign devoted to team drills.
The first period of team drills worked on defensive blitzes and the second period focused on red zone drills. The final 32 plays of the practice were situational drills where the offense started at their own 20 yard line. Earlier in the practice, the offense practiced a situational drill facing 2nd-and-long, needing seven yards for the first.
As is a bit of the norm for the team, they open practice with some special teams work and end it with some special teams work. Likewise, they began with punting and ended with punt return.
“There was great energy today, sometimes you have a little lull when you come back from a scrimmage after that second week of practice of the spring but I thought it was great,” Jones said after the practice. “They brought it today and I am real proud of them. Offensively I thought Brandon had a great day throwing the ball, our receivers caught the ball well and ran real sharp routes. One thing we are struggling with a little bit is our snaps, they are all over the place at times, we have to fix that.”
“We could see we have a few guys who are starting to step up in a role where they can play,” Jones said concerning the film study after the first scrimmage. “Offensively we improved from week one, Clay Machen had a real good day and the line blocked well overall. Our ones played really, really well on defense, but we have to find some more depth.”
The team will have Tuesday off before returning to the practice fields on Wednesday. The annual spring game is slated for Saturday at Ladd-Peebles Stadium beginning at 11am.
South Alabama Sports – Weekend Update
Softball
The USA Softball team swept their first conference series of the season against UT-Arlington over the weekend.
The first two games were both shortened by the mercy rule with 9-0 and 8-0 wins.
Farish Beard and Hannah Campbell both tossed shutouts and combined to only allow three hits. Actually the Jags outhit the Mavricks 19-3 on Saturday.
Kaitlyn Griffith and Amanda Minahan led the Jags at the plate with four hits each. Amanda Herron, Blair Johnson and Stephanie Pilkington all had three RBI each.
In the first game Beard shrunk her nation-leading ERA to just 0.35 after allowing only one hit and no runs against the Mavricks. She struck out 11 batters for her seventh shutout of the season.
Campbell was seventh in the country in ERA and also saw hers shrink further to 0.72 as she allowed two hits with four strikeouts and no walks in her shutout.
On Sunday, the Jags needed an extra inning to finally put away the Mavricks to earn their weekend sweep with a 2-1 win. The Jags outhit the Mavricks 7-3 but committed four errors.
Blair Johnson led the Jags at the plate by going 3-for-4 and scoring the game-winning run when Amanda Herron hit a two-out double in the bottom of the eighth inning. Herron ended the weekend with a team-high four RBI.
Gwen Jones scored the game-tying run in the bottom of the seventh inning when UTA’s shortstop’s routine throw to first sailed into the visitor’s dugout.
Beard struck out seven in six innings and allowed one run before Hannah Campbell came in for relief. Campbell tossed a shutout to move to 9-2 on the season after striking out one and no walks to earn the win.
The Jags will play at Troy on Tuesday before returning home to host Louisiana-Monroe for a three game weekend series on Saturday and Sunday.
Baseball
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South Alabama Sports Weekend Preview
Softball
The #13 ranked Jaguars will host UT-Arlington for a three game weekend series on Saturday and Sunday at Jaguar Field.
The Jags (22-3) are on a six game winning streak after going 3-0 last week with Hannah Campbell’s second career perfect game, a 9-0 run-rule win over New Mexico State and a 5-1 win over Oklahoma State in Stillwater.
USA pitchers currently leads the nation with an overall ERA of 0.95 with Farish Beard leading the NCAA with a 0.38 ERA and Campbell with a 0.76 ERA as well.
The Jaguars are undefeated at home so far this season, going 6-0. Last season they were 8-3 at home in conference play and 17-3 overall. They clinched the second overall seed in the conference tournament and won the 2013 SBC Championship to win the conference tournament title for the second consecutive year.
This will be the Jags first time to face UT-Arlington who are 14-15 on the season and batting .283 and are 1-3 on the road. This is also the Mavricks first season playing in the Sun Belt Conference.
They will face off at 1pm and again at 3pm on Saturday before wrapping up the series at noon on Sunday.
Baseball
The 10-9 Jags will be in Little Rock, Arkansas to face UALR in a three game weekend series. The Jaguars are 10-9 on the season and 1-1 in conference play and are coming off of a 9-0 loss to #6 LSU on Wednesday.
UALR is also 10-9 on the season and 0-3 in conference play as they were swept by Arkansas State last weekend in Jonesboro, Arkansas. They have lost six of their last eight games but defeated #30 Oklahoma 11-2 on Wednesday in Norman, Oklahoma.
USA’s Kevin Hill will make his fourth start of the season tonight at 6pm. UALR lefty Travis McDonald (2-1) will bring his 1.95 ERA to the game against the Jaguars who are batting .235 as a team.
Locke St. John (2-0) will make his sixth start of the season at 4pm on Saturday and no starter has been named for Sunday’s 1pm game.
All three games can be heard locally and online on 105.5 WNSP and WNSP.com or live streamed video can be purchased at UALRTrojans.com.
Track and Field
After two straight contests at home, the Jaguar men and women are in Tuscaloosa for the Alabama Relays, which started on Thursday. Events start today at 2pm with women’s javelin throw and running events begin at 5pm. Saturday at noon will open with the women’s discus throw.
The Jags won the Battle of I-65 last weekend over Samford and Alabama State and look to continue that momentum this weekend against even stronger competition. Live results can be found here.
No Sun Belt Expansion Just Yet
Last week during the Sun Belt Conference tournament, conference commissioner Karl Benson and the SBC schools met while they were all in New Orleans and the conversation of expansion was not something they voted on in their meetings.
With Western Kentucky leaving for Conference USA, they have been discussing the possibility of adding a 12th school to the conference. Early last year they opted against immediately adding a 12th football playing school and if they intend to add a FCS school for the 2015 season, they would need to do so by June 1.
Benson is not sure when or if a vote will take place when the same administrators from the represtative schools gather together again in mid-May for the annual spring meetings.
WKU leaves the Sun Belt to join other former members Middle Tennessee, North Texas, Florida International and Florida Atlantic in Conference USA.
The reason for a 12th football team would be to achieve geographic balance with the creation of two divisions would give the conference the opportunity for a conference football championship game which would give the league more visibility and more revenue.
At least four current FCS programs are interested and one that continues to be mentioned each time the conversation starts is Liberty University in Virginia. They have either won outright or shared the Big South Conference championship from 2007 through 2013.
Benson said that, “We’re going through the process of evaluating and doing our due diligence,” when he spoke about adding a 12th school. But he did not indicate if that due diligence included Liberty or any school in particular.
If one is to get an invite they would need to get 75% of the Sun Belt member schools to vote for their admission.
Defensive Players Look Good In Second Week Of Practice
Quarterbacks Trey Fetner and Ross Metheny participating in position drills in a previous seasons practice session.
Monday’s practice wasn’t the best day day for the Jags, especially for the quarterbacks who didn’t have a good day throwing the ball.
But everything has a silver lining sometimes as the defense showed alot of passion on the defensive line and linebacker. Theo Rich knocked down a number of passes. While Jesse Kelley has started to be a leader both on and off the field for the defensive line. He and Jerome McClain have been working to teach the younger guys the system and pushing them to continue to get better each practice and each play.
Kelley finished the 2013 season tied for 11th place of the Jaguar tackler’s last season with 34 stops and 6.5 of them for loss including two sacks.
On Wednesday, the quarterbacks looked better throwing the ball with more accuracy. Also Brandon Bridge, who came into spring practices as the top quarterback, has started to take on more of a leadership role.
Coach Jones was impressed with the defense again as the secondary and linebackers did a good job. They did a good job in coverage with Montell Garner picking off a pass during the practice session.
A bit of a surprise was sprung on the players and kickers at the end of practice. Jones told the players in his post-practice talk with the team, that the kickers, Aleem Sunanon representing the defense and Zac Henry representing the offense, were going to attempt 45-yard field goals. If one made it and the other didn’t, then that squad would have to do pushups. If both make their kicks, the coaches would do pushups.
Both kickers missed their kicks on the first attempt, but both made them on their second attempt and the coaching staff did their push-ups.
USA will return to the practice field on Saturday with a two-hour-plus scrimmage scheduled at 3pm. “We’ll have a long scrimmage,” Jones told AL.com after practice. “It will be every bit of two hours because we want to get as many people on the field as we can and get them some reps. One of the things we talked about in the staff meeting is just getting better fundamentally. For instance, the only way the offensive line can get better is by going with the speed of the game and blocking guys at a full-speed rate. Walking though and all those things – talking about it and watching film – ain’t going to get it. So we get our offensive line better and our defensive line better playing fast out here at practice and they’re doing a good job with the practice tempo.”
The first part of the day on Saturday will be Junior Day where somewhere between 200 and 300 prospective student-athletes will visit allowing the school to showcase what they have to offer. They will have an opportunity to see the campus as well as watching the scrimmage. Coach Jones says that if they can get a kid on campus, then they stand a good chance at getting them to eventually sign with the program.
USA Men’s Basketball Announce Two Transfers Leaving The Team
Viktor Juricek as a freshman in December 2012 | USAJaguars.com
The University of South Alabama announced that sophomore Viktor Juricek and freshman T.J. Johnson intend to transfer to other programs from the men’s basketball program.
Juricek, 6’11” 210-pound native of Prievidza, Slovakia, played in 26 games over his two seasons at USA and averaged one point per game.
Johnson, a 6’2″ 175-pound guard from Tamarac, Florida and Deerfield Beach High School played in 20 games this past season and averaged 2.6 points per game for the Jaguars.
This will free up two more scholarships for head coach Matthew Graves who has already signed 6’8″ forwards Tafari Whittingham and Abdul Lewis in the early signing period. Whittingham will come from Hutchinson KA Community College and Lewis from Newark, New Jersey’s East Side High.
They also signed 6’5″ Luka Andjusic who enrolled in December and practiced with the team using his redshirt.
Coach Graves has mentioned that they want to sign a post player and a wing player with some size and quickness.
The Jags played with six freshmen this season, Andjusic made seven, out of a 14 man roster and graduated two seniors in Antoine Allen and preseason Player of the Year and multi-record holder Augustine Rubit.
Back in December of 2012 Matt Weaver wrote a piece on Viktor for Thunderjags. You can read it by clicking here.
Viktor Juricek has breakout performance in South Alabama’s victory over Corpus Christi
USA Softball Continues To Rise In Polls Ahead Of SBC Play
The Jaguars continue to inch their way up the polls. This week they move up one spot in the USA Today/NFCA Top 25 poll to #13 and they moved up three spots in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Top 25 poll also to the #13 spot.
USA went 2-0 over this past weekend winning by a combined score of 14-1, including a 5-1 win over host Oklahoma State. But their Sunday rematch against the Cowgirls was cancelled due to weather.
The Jaguars have been led by the powerful duo in the pitchers circle, senior Hannah Campbell and junior Farish Beard.
Beard, a Fairhope native, ranks first in the country in NCAA stats with a miniscule ERA of only 0.38. Her hits per game (7 innings) is the lowest in the country at 1.98. She is third in the county in strikeouts per seven innings at 11.5 and 17th in total strikeouts with 122 this season.
Hannah Campbell, a Satsuma native, is seventh in the country in ERA with a similarly small 0.76 ERA and is sixth in the nation in walks allowed per seven innings at 0.67. She is tied for 34th in total strikeouts with 102.
Farish is 13-1 on the season with nine complete games under her belt and has pitched 74.1 innings. Campbell is 7-2 on the season with nine complete games while pitching 83 innings. Campbell also recently pitched her second career perfect game when they defeated Nicholls State.
They have also gotten help from the plate with Pilkington batting .329 with 12 RBI, Kaitlyn Griffith batting .318 with two home runs and 11 RBI. Amanda Minahan batting .297 with two home runs and 10 RBI, Chloe Rathburn batting .288 with 5 home runs and 16 RBI, Blair Johnson batting .250 with two home runs and 14 RBI and Alex Breeden who has five home runs and 15 RBI. But they also do well with defense as a host of players have a perfect fielding percentage and a number more with over a .900 fielding percentage.
Now with their tournament portion of their schedule over with, the 22-3 Jaguars have turned their focus on their conference schedule which begins on Saturday at Jaguar Field. They will host Texas-Arlington for a double-header on Saturday beginning at 1pm and game two scheduled for 3pm. Then their Sunday game is scheduled to get started at noon.
The only other Sun Belt team in the top 25 is Louisiana-Lafayette who are #20 in the USA Today/NFCA Top 25 poll and #22 in the ESPN.com/USA SOftball Top 25 poll. The University of Alabama sits and #9, four spots ahead of the Jaguars.